You Have a Call

I come home from the store, from supper, from seeing Mom and I usually have, at least, one call on my answering machine. They are, often, from many different sources, some even legit.

It’s not those, though, I wish to discuss with you today.  It is this inundation with pranks, scamming, and dangerous calls I point my finger at.  One particular call came in twice today.  This was a recorded response.  Going something like this: (not an exact quote)

“Intrusions have been coming from many different countries.  We will be changing your IP address to fix this problem.  Please call our service at [phone number].  Thank you.”

Firstly, yes, there have been intrusions coming from many countries.  The above message is just one of them.  Changing your IP would not, particularly fix this problem.  I doubt they even care about the IP, in general.  The IP is, sorta, the name used on the Internet for your computer’s transactions.  Changing that would only help you if they were going directly to your computer.  Not the problem.  Calling them, probably, would get you a person who would, undoubtedly, want you to login to a site and allow them to control your computer.  Again, that won’t handle your IP.  If they want your password to your modem, that would fix the problem, but also allow them to plant something that would allow them into your computer and all other devices using that modem later. If you don’t know what your modem is, it is, usually, a device with about 5-9 lights on the front with, at least, one cable on the back.  That one cable should go to your Internet connection in the wall or ceiling.  They differ, but main thing is don’t EVER make those types of calls, even if you have been having problems.  Call your Internet provider (Comcast, etc…) and ask them IF they have been calling (probably not).  Just ignore the calls.  I thought, today, how tired I get of fielding those calls and I know they are fake.  It really bothers me how just ONE call that gets made to that place can result in all your bank accounts, credit accounts, and other money-type accounts getting hacked.  Not to mention you will have to take the computer to a specialist to get rid of all the messy programming and/or have your entire computer disk and memory wiped clean before getting to use it again at all.  If you wait and, say, send an email out, they could have put an virus into that email that would continue the mess with whoever you send that email (or hundreds of them) and so on.

There are calls about all kinds of offers, emails that you may have received.  Here are a few I have gotten or talked to others who did:

1. You have won the European lottery.  Call [xxxx] to verify and collect your winnings.
2. You have been named in a will by an uncle who willed you as the owner of a silver mine in Africa.  I am a lawyer trying to get your money to you.
3. I am [such and such].  I have several job openings for someone and you can make [several thousand a month] for just mailing letters.

The list goes on and on.  They also stalk Facebook, Dating sites, and other popular places where people chat. I have had constant barrage of offers to “be my friend” on FB.  If I don’t know the person, and sometimes even if I do, I go to their web page.  Usually, there is very little on there. I find a lot with pictures of a beautiful woman in many outfits and locations who goes by this name.  Her current list of friends, if available, are nearly all men.

The dating site ones are the best.  The person will “respond” to my like almost immediately, no matter what time it is. She will give a profile full of grammar errors and lofty love statements:  “I know we will fall in love completely, filling the world with the painting of our affection.” (again, not an exact quote).  She will tell me how devoted she will be as a wife and take care of her man.  But she doesn’t like to chat onsite…could I just call [xxxx] or hit her up on some web site where she can be anonymous and privately chat with the dozens she (or he) has gathered.

I even took one of the photos and ran it through google reverse image search or tineye.  Either will look for photo matches.  Not reliable when they miss, but this one hit and was from a web site where this other woman’s picture had been copied and used.

Another of my warning posts.

You can take it or leave it, but I suggest you pay some attention to it.  These people make their living at faking you out and stealing something from you.

Love you all,

Scott

 

A Week in the Life of…

It has been a long week.  My Sister going through radiation/chemo treatments for brain cancer, having just finished it for colorectal cancer, and knowing she has one more surgery and rad/chemo round to go for the third type of cancer she has Merkle carcinoma (think that’s right) on her leg.  Mom is stressing over this and having some health problems, while I am still recuperating from my hip surgery in April.  There are good things happening:  I am getting my sugar count under control, I am working out 2-4 times a week, Sis is responding to the treatment.  So what didn’t go so well?  My love life. Looking back on it, I should not have even started it, but…we are all human I guess.  I would have advised someone else against it, but you decide…

Last Friday night I was looking through “my matches” on a popular dating site.  This site would allow me to see women from 44 on up.  The site has proclaimed that allowing more age difference than this can lead to problems of things…  I prefer to look at a bit younger, but that’s the policy, so I live with it there.  Anyway, I had selected a group of women to look at.  I was seeing if proximity was a problem, if they smoked too much, too many children, and so on.  Just trying to avoid most of the problems I normally run into.

I finally had it down to 3 or 4 that I would read in depth and decide if letters were going to be sent.  One, in particular, caught my interest.  She was in her early 50s, attractive (the photos were obviously from when she was younger, but fine, deal later- why do men get in so much trouble if WE do that very same thing, but it’s okay for women?).  She lived in nearby Indianapolis.  I answered her letter, stating we should “Talk” (that means talk through the website, normally). I send it and go to the next one.  Within 5 minutes she had responded.  Her response was to say, “You’re right, we should talk” followed by her cell number.  I don’t usually do that, but I was the one who used the word “talk”, my fault, I supposed.  I send her a text and got an answer very quickly.  This conversation started at about 12:30AM and ran into the wee hours, mostly because reception in my area is so poor.  I went to sleep for a short time, waking up to realize that she had already deleted her account and I hadn’t spoken to her at all.  I was tired and upset and tried to call her number…a few beeps, nothing more.  I texted her and got an almost immediate response.  She explained all that she had done, moving most of it away with the idea that she was in the military intelligence and all were “under surveillance”.  She also was not sure what had happened, but she was 32 and stationed in New Jersey.  For the next few days we texted.  I spent some time early on researching dating scams and seeing how she fit into them.  She didn’t, but one article stated that some went on for months or years gaining your trust to get the payout at the end.

She was looking to get serious fast (one of the earmarks of scams) and was furious when she found out I could not give her children.  She then asked about adoption.  I didn’t think this was sounding much like a scam, but I didn’t tell her anything I haven’t said here or on Facebook.  We continued through the weekend. I would like to say we shared information back and forth, and we did, but each time I asked a question she would take sometimes hours to answer.  She said she was at work and couldn’t talk all the time, but this happened off-hours, too.  The worst thing that I saw was she had a temper and moved too fast through everything.  She was talking about marriage and living together and we hadn’t even met. These things finally got to me.  I ended it on Tuesday in a text that she didn’t respond to for over 6 hours.  She texted back and told me that she didn’t know why I was so negative about things, but she didn’t need that in her life. bye.

There was more, of course.  I did Google her and her pics, checked out the NJ Military base, even sending an inquiry to personnel about her existence (word of advice – be careful with that one.  You may have to tell her and that is not fun at all!).

I don’t know if I was being Catfished or if she was legit and just young and angry. Doesn’t matter now; it’s done.  I am glad.  The entire thing wore me out mentally and even physically.  It wasn’t worth it, I don’t think so, anyway…

What do you think?

Namaste, my friends,

Scott