Wrinkly Bits
A Blog by Gail Cushman
Have you ever had one of those days? The day that everything seems to go afoul, nothing works right, nothing is on time, and you forget this, that, and the other thing…all three. Dang.
Our doctor’s office is an hour away, so going to the doctor, even for a quick rundown, requires planning. What time to leave to make the appointment? Do we really need the extra 15-20 minutes they tell us to report by? Well, Cowboy had a routine appointment on Tuesday, just needing an answer to a question. No big deal. The appointment was at 10, so we would leave a little after 9, arrive on time, and greet all the people in the office, who are always glad to see us. It was 8:50, I had rounded up all the stuff we needed to get this adventure on the road, purse, glasses, phones, and coats. Cody could go with us on this trip and stood guard at the door, so we wouldn’t leave him behind. All of a sudden, Cowboy’s computer had a screeching sound, like a full-blown train whistle. Just 20 or 30 seconds long. Twice. It was as if the local train (two miles away) had run off the tracks, zoomed across the river, and landed in Cowboy’s office. Holy Guacamole. What was it? The noise scared the pee-wadden out of me, but it stopped as suddenly as it had started and I went back to my coffee, thinking about our trip to the doc. Cody flicked his ears and looked at me, but didn’t move, lest he would lose his place in line to get into the vehicle. It was 9:03, almost time to go.
All of a sudden Cowboy called out, “Cancel the med appointment. I’ve been hacked.”
“What? What’s going on?” He was serious, as serious as I had ever seen him. His face was red and white. His voice was shaking and he stood up and sat down three or four times. What was going on?
“I’ve been hacked,” he repeated. “Somebody hacked my computer.” He threw a few expletives in, but I’ll omit them.
I looked at his computer, expecting to see fire and smoke and maybe a hatchet splitting the computer in half, but it was worse. Red flashing lights, and a phone number reading “MICROSOFT EMERGENCY. CALL THIS NUMBER NOW,” with an 800-phone number displayed in red capital letters. I cancelled the med appointment. The computer emergency took precedence over his routine question to the doc.
Cowboy is in the middle of three different writing projects, unrelated, but all three are complex, so they need to be correct. He had done a lot of work on all three. Losing those documents would be disastrous.
He said, “Should I call the number? It’s Microsoft, for crying out loud. This must be serious.”
“I don’t know? It looks authentic, and says it is a Microsoft number. We can take it into the Geek Squad, but that’ll take a whole day, maybe two or three. Let’s call the number, see what we get. It says Microsoft. We can go to Billings later if we need to.”
So, we had a conversation with a somebody who said he was a Microsoft employee, not a traditional English speaker, but someone with an accented Geek-speak, rolling off all kinds of questions and a plethora of information that made no sense to either of us.
Here is what happened next: we had checked everything and he finally said, “You’ve got viruses, really bad viruses and they’ve infected both your computer and online banking system, so the most important thing is that we need to protect your online banking system from this bad virus until you can replace your computer. I can do that for you. Could you give me your bank numbers, please.” Cowboy slammed the phone down and shouted at the phone, “Thief. You’re a thief. A lowly robber, pickpocket, thief. Best Buy–Geek Squad at here we come. Let’s go.”
The Geek Squad at Best Buy was busy, as usual. I think you need gray hair and a lot of wrinkles to get an appointment, and we waited a long time. The Geeky guy finally took our computer and said, “Yup, that’s pretty much what we do. When you see this Microsoft thing that sounds like a train wreck, hit CTRL, ALT, DELETE. Immediately! Otherwise, it will be a financial train wreck. All those ‘Microsoft emergencies’ require you to hand over your bank account numbers. Don’t do it! They are Internet shysters and thieves. That’s pretty much what this line is for.” He pointed at the ever-growing line of gray-haired people.
And now: His computer is refreshed, and working as it should. His banking apps are intact with a big sigh of relief. My message today is a word of advice: watch out for a Microsoft computer thief as it can be a fatal train wreck!
