Anatomy of a Scam

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

“The Internet is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. To avoid temptation, one must consider the apple carefully before taking a bite .” ~The author~

On an autumn afternoon during the coronavirus pandemic, I became host to a virus — the cyber-kind. My Amazon account was hacked, and my iPhone was phished, in an artfully executed scam ten days after my sixty-fifth birthday. You might suspect my age made me an easy target. Yes, I am a digital immigrant. The use of technology is foreign to my analog upbringing. But I have worked to learn digital skills, like so many in my generation. On a scale of one to ten, I rate myself an eight in computer literacy when compared to the general population.

I am NOT the kind of person who falls for scams —

The number of scams reported to the Federal Trade Commission exploded at the start of the pandemic — from 18,000 in March to almost 40,000 in April 2020. This little piece of news in The Washington Post escaped my attention, distracted as I was by the coronavirus lockdown, civil unrest, and the presidential election.

Falling for a con was out of character. Aren’t I the person who avoids or hangs up on robocalls? Who refuses phone pledges, even for the most righteous causes? Aren’t I the person who refuses to provide credit card numbers to the friendly Macy’s lady phoning to say my payment is late…