This month, I had a genuine Friday the 13th experience. As we were due a snowstorm that day, I planned to stay home and catch up on various tasks. I was trying unsuccessfully to scan some documents with my ancient laptop and contacted the printer company to get some help.
Long story short, it seems as though I accessed a fraudulent website acting as this company and foolishly allowed the ‘technician’ access to my computer, whereupon it was hacked. The man at the other end sounded so trustworthy and sincere in wanting to help me get up and running, that I honestly didn’t cotton on until he started asking for huge sums of money to fix the problem. It was at this point that I ended the call and shut down the laptop, it finally donning on me that I’d been scammed.
Thus ended my cozy day at home and a instead, a trek out into the howling snowstorm to try and get my computer wiped of any infected viruses. But with the laptop being so old, none of the computer stores I went to recommended doing so. I had been planning on replacing my laptop for a newer model, but in my own time and not in a mad panic, which is how things panned out. Fortunately, after a long trudge on public transit to the other end of the city, I came home with a very nice laptop, but it was a hard lesson learned.
It was an upsetting experience and I felt violated and was angry with myself for getting duped, though of course, the outcome could have been a lot worse. I do feel it’s a natural inclination to believe that others are willing to help us, and it takes a particular kind of nastiness of those who prey on vulnerable people, earning their trust and cheating them out of hard-earned money and personal security.
Fraud has adapted well to our evolving technology and internet scams are so prevalent that nobody I spoke to seemed surprised by the one I fell into. These days, with our reliance on the internet and its maelstrom of information, it’s getting harder to know what’s reputable or who or what to trust anymore.
Certainly, this was a wake-up call to me to be vigilant and on my guard with internet sites. But I refuse to let it make me paranoid or unwilling to trust in the benevolence of most humankind.. Even throughout my ordeal, everyone I encountered – at the bank, my fellow passengers, computer salespeople – were all very kind and sympathetic to my plight. What a sad state it would be to feel you could no longer trust anyone, which would only result in poisoning your soul and making you feel very isolated.
The internet, even with its falsehoods and scams, has also opened up opportunities globally for people to connect and help one another in unprecedented ways. So while remaining intelligent and astute while using it– just as we would with any tool, I will continue to believe that the virtual community has far more good apples than bad and and an incredible scope for forging meaningful connections and for leading to mutually positive and beneficial outcomes.
And I have an awesome new laptop. 💻