This is a rant, you’ve been warned!

My adulthood honeymoon came to an abrupt end yesterday when a couple of a$$holes decided it was a good idea to scam me during the busy time of the year. I have been trying to catch up on cash reconciliation since last Thursday and because of customer mistakes, I have to fix it on my end.

Just as I was about to get in the zone, an a$$hole called me. I answered as my phone verified the number to be coming from my internet provider. They would once in a while call me to let me know of promotions and spam. My contract on my internet service was coming to end, so I thought why not, I’d indulge a sales call.

The guy started out mangling my name. I forgave that since plenty of people mangle my name even though it’s not that hard. Then he proceeded to tell me my Firewall was down. He even made me log into my modem’s gateway to get me to see for myself.

How was that possible? My internet was supposed to be secured. It even said to include Advanced Security. I checked the app on my phone and it told me everything was secured and working fine. There was no foreign devices as the person said, and my Firewall was okay. It should had been a red flag but my scam radar was malfunctioning beneath all the anxiety.

He took over my work laptop and began running diagnostics on it. “Oh dear,” he said in an Indian accent, “this is worse than I thought.” He proceeded to tell me my identity has been compromised.

I was panicking then, “Just stop talking and fix the damn thing!” I shouted. I didn’t want to hear anymore of BS. I wouldn’t understand with this thick Indian accent. He might as well had spoken in gibberish. My laptop began to flicker in and out of darkness as I watched various pages of my most visited sites came into view in between the flicker.

It was then horrific vision began to fill my mind. I’ve read too many novels and seen too many movies and TV shows about all that’s happening. He’s planting something, isn’t he? I stopped panicking then and was in full-on rage. “What the f- are you doing? Get it back to the way it was before.”

He, too, was getting impatient. “I’m trying to fix it for you, ma’am.” A few minutes later, he told me to get my car and drive to the nearest store.

“Why?” I asked. He refused to tell me. “I can’t,” I said, “I’m at work.”

“You can’t work now, ma’am.” The word ma’am was starting to frustrate me. No one tells me what to do. “If you don’t do this now, your service and all of your credit cards will be shut off. Your identity has been compromised.”

Stupid me, I gave in. “Fine, just tell me what I need to do there.”

“You need to purchase a gift card to verify your identity.”

“Are you f-ing kidding me? You think I’d fall for your scam?” I shouted in the foulest language imaginable. I wasn’t sure where it came from but apparently, I lose all language discretion in situations like this.

“Ma’am, do you want your service cut? Because that will happen if you don’t go to Walmart and get $500 gift card.”

Stupid me went to Walmart but deep down, I knew I would not be able to get the gift cards because after all the scams, Walmart has limited the gift cards to $200. I muted the call and left the store without getting anything. Instead, I drove straight to my internet provider’s physical store, gave the phone to them, and let them have a word with the scammer, who immediately hung up.

In the end, despite the scammer didn’t accomplish anything with me other than ruined my entire afternoon, I had to spend the night calling each of my credit cards to make sure they’re either secured and being closely monitored or canceled and changing every one of my passwords. Meanwhile, I would have to head into the office early to have the IT department scrub it and reinstall it.

I don’t know why these people would do such a thing. How do they sleep at night? Oh, I know, by stealing other people’s valuable time and energy. I not only will have to reset every electronic to my new wifi, I will also have to closely monitor my bank account with the anxiety of knowing these bastards got a peek and who knows how much information they got and with my road trip coming up in a few days, it’s not what I need.

They are probably laughing behind the scenes at stupid people like me for falling for their tricks and high-fiving, proclaiming, “We got her good.” You know what? This is NOT FUNNY!