If you need a reminder of how much stupidity there is in the world, there are these people who call you — I just spoke to one — claiming to be computer technicians who need access to your computer to fix something that's gone horribly wrong with it. You have to have an I.Q. near single digits to not spot this as a scam in under three seconds…but since they still do this, someone somewhere must be falling for it.
I just got a call from "Sanford" from a 415 area code telling me he's the technician who helped me with my computer the last time, alerting me I have a deadly virus that is sending out my personal info, including all of my credit card data and passwords, to thieves around the globe. I must immediately log into the website address he'll give me so he can enter my computer, remove the virus and inoculate my computer against further infections.
Quick Rule of Thumb: Never get an inoculation from someone who doesn't know how to pronounce "inoculate."
I'm kinda curious as to how much this guy might clear if I did go, "Duh, okay!" and give him control of my P.C. I also wonder how many "go fuck yourself, you criminal asshole"s he has to hear before he stumbles across a rube…but I guess the occasional jackpots make it worth it. I get about two of these a month.
And I guess the callers themselves are pretty dense too because even after I told the guy, "Your mother would be ashamed of you for doing this, you lying piece of shit," he was still saying to me, "No, no, I am not lying. Your computer has a deadly virus!" A person any smarter than a salmon would have realized instantly he wasn't going to sell me and would have hung up and tried the next guy on his Potential Sucker List.
Maybe I should have tried telling him, "You're lucky you called me, Sanford! I just got an alert that there's a deadly virus on your computer and it's sending out your personal info, including all of your credit card data and passwords, to thieves around the globe. Quick! You must immediately log into the website address I'll give you so I can enter your computer, remove the virus and inoculate your computer against further infections!"
If I do that with every one of these clowns, I'll bet one of them will fall for it. After all, I'll even pronounce "inoculate" properly.