Watch out for the scammers

Beware: Too many out there to count

How I hate crooks, scammers, let me count the ways. If I had my way, they’d all develop a painful chronic case of never-ending hemorrhoids that would follow them all the way into the nursing home.

“No, I’m sorry, but you have to sit firmly in the wheelchair, and no, we don’t have another pillow for your behind.”

I’d also vote for castration, but some people might think that a little too extreme. Not me. The people who con other people can’t have enough bad luck handed to them as far as I’m concerned.

Trouble is, in today’s online world, the scammers may live halfway around the globe, and there’s no way you’re going to tap into the jurisdiction under which they commit their crimes. So by and large, they get away with scamming people with total impunity.

The Baby Boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964) comprises approximately 70 million people, more than double my parents’ generation, which unfortunately offers scammers, AKA, con men and women, but mostly men, scum of the earth, a lot of susceptible suckers from whom to steal money.

Last month, the city of McAllen released a public warning to residents to be aware of phone scammers passing themselves off as having the ability to cut off their electricity because they were late paying their bill.

The caller would threaten to turn off the resident’s electricity if they didn’t immediately make good their past-due account.

Based on one’s current spot along the cognitive-decline spectrum, you could be easily scammed or not. Still, the threat of getting one’s electricity turned off is going to get most people’s attention. Meaning, for this particular scam, most people will at least take a moment to listen to what else the caller had to say.

According to a city press release, the scam caller would give two options. Press one for payment, or press two if the bill was already paid. The rule should be, never press anything without first doing some fact checking. In the case of McAllen, one could simply call their utility provider to find out what’s going on.

Same thing with regard to emails. Never click any link or download without first verifying the party who is asking for the info. Recent Scam Experience

I was recently worked over by a scam artist who said he represented Best Buy’s Geek Squad. I would have worked him over if I could have gotten my hands on him, but he was probably halfway around the world, so I played along with him to see where his scam was headed.

I got an email out of the blue with a Best Buy invoice attached to it. It looked 100 percent legit. It said I was being charged approximately $400 on my credit card for a virus protection program that I never ordered.

So I called the number listed and got a guy who sounded like he lived outside the U.S. I told him what I wanted — cancel the credit-card order.

Oh, no, he said, “You must log onto your computer and…” “Wait a minute,” I said. I have the invoice number right here. Just look it up and take me off of it.”

This is when he launched into one of the standard lines the con guys use. They begin to speak to you as if you’re some neanderthal who doesn’t know the basic rudiments of a computer. I could imitate him, but it’s hard to do in print.

“Sir, sir, you must listen to me. Do you have a computer? Can you go there now?”

“Yeah, but all you need to do is look up the invoice you sent me. I don’t owe you any money.”

“Sir, to remove the credit card payment, you must be logged on to your computer.”

This con was starting to spice itself up. If only I could reach through the phone and grab him by the neck.

I decided, though, to play along to see where he’d take me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m sitting at my computer. Where to you want me to go?”

Then he gave me the web address (URL) for one of those sites that IT guys use to access computers remotely so they can work on whatever you need fixing.

Before ever doing that, though, anyone obviously wants to verify who you’re giving it out to. If, for example, I called the Apple support line, and one of their techs wanted remote access to my Mac, I’d have no problem with that. To give it to some foreign guy, though, although granted, he could be living in the U.S., there is no way I’m going to do that.

I’m trying to remember which site he directed me, but no matter, there are more than a handful out there, like goto.com, for example.

“Okay, I’m there, I told the scammer. What do I do now?”

“You see that download button?” he asked, again, like he was talking to some old dude in assisted living, “you click the download button.”

“I’m not going to do that,” I told him. “You know what I think? I think you’re a scammer, and I hope you develop permanent hemorrhoids.”

Then I hung up.

Now if I had done that, given the dude remote access to my computer, then conceivably, a hacker could have gained access to my Mac and done all sorts of nasty things to yours truly. I’m sure my credit card number is on there. Because when I asked the con guy to tell me the last four digits of the credit card they were using to charge me, he couldn’t even come up with that.

So, he had nothing but my email address.

The worry is, when anyone gets an email, maybe a text, asking for urgent action to prevent something terrible from happening to you -- your electricity will get cut off; x amount of dollars will be charged to your account, etc., you owe the IRS this amount of money immediately, pending arrest, people -- most people, will get nervous.

That’s how these con scum manipulate people to take action. They create within them some amount of fear and anxiety.

The problem is, as I mentioned at the top of this column, with the Baby Boomer generation growing older with the passage of time, a certain percentage among us will suffer from some form of cognitive decline to varying degrees.

As you can tell from what I write, it’s already happening to me. (Joking.)

But with 70 million of us still mostly around, that number offers the cons serious opportunity, because even 10 percent represents 7 million people from whom to steal. And as we grow older, that 10 percent is going to increase with age. Not for all of us, but enough to offer ripe pickings for crooks.

The other problem, too, is that bank accounts are currently being hacked with debit card numbers stolen from people. How, who knows. Problem is, banks need to support their bank customers when these online thefts occur, but from the stories I’ve heard, a few I’ve written about, some banks are leaving their customers out to dry, refusing to make them whole, even though the fault of stolen money really lay with the bank’s IT security/fraud department not being up to snuff.