In the fairytale Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf is the embodiment of malice. He assumes false identities to trick Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother into trusting him. Then he devours them. Along comes a hunter, a decent and helpful man. He cuts the wolf open and pulls out Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother, both alive. That’s the tale as told by the Brothers Grimm in 1812.
Nearly two centuries later an updated form of malice began to circulate. The wolf was gone, enter malware, a word invented 1997 combining malicious and software. Malware tricks, cons and scams us through our computers and mobile devices. What follows is an account of my experience on 6 May 2023, the day King Charles III was crowned and I was royally scammed.
Around mid-morning, working on a translation, I clicked on the link of a site I’d often used, a Latin dictionary. To my horror, the screen went dark but for a pop-up window, telling me my computer had been infected and giving me a number to phone for help. The pop-up itself didn’t appear threatening, in fact, it looked persuasively official, like something from Microsoft, but I decided to close down the computer anyway. After a brief wait, I turned it back on. The screen was still dark, the pop-up still there. Again I shut the computer down, waited, and turned it back on. Again, the same dark screen and pop-up.
I felt helpless and rattled, so I called the number given in the pop-up. A woman answered and instructed me to press certain keys – the Windows key and R – simultaneously, which, unbeknownst to me, brings up the Run box. She got me to run a command and told me to click very fast on some more pop-ups – so fast that I couldn’t even read what was written on them. The scammer, posing as tech support, was now in control of my computer.
The show began. Telling me my computer had been slow lately, she pretended to run endless tests, at lightning speed. My eyes glued to the screen, I watched her type that 15,538 errors and warnings had been detected. She told me that over 300 people had access to my computer and had downloaded all kinds of websites, including a porn hub. To shock me further, she opened the link to a porn site that supposedly was on my computer.
After she claimed to have cleaned up everything, she passed me on to a technician who was going to install tools to keep my computer safe. Once finished, the technician said I owed them $1,900 USD. Well, they had me by the short and curlies – I was totally in their power. The technician said I was to write out a cheque for that amount payable to Devine Mart (I later found out that the scammers’ business name was Quickhelp 24-7) and place it on the scanner. I did as told – to my amazement, without my having turned the scanner on, an image of the check appeared on my computer screen. The technician told me to mail it to Devine Mart, at an address in St. Petersburg, Florida. I explained Canada Post wasn’t open on Saturdays, and he said I could mail it on Monday. He also said he’d phone me the next day to ask if the computer was working well.
By that time I was getting increasingly suspicious. I told a friend about my experience and he agreed I’d been scammed. I called my bank and took the necessary steps to secure my accounts. I never mailed the cheque. Fortunately I don’t do online banking, therefore the scammers couldn’t steal any other financial information. Furthermore, some time ago I’d put tape over the computer’s built-in camera, so there was no chance of their having spied on me. I also immediately had the computer scanned for possible malware – everything that they’d downloaded onto my computer was removed.
The scammers did phone the following day. They left a message that they had important security information for my computer and I should call them immediately. I did not. They repeated the message at least once a day, for the next few days. Their English was always faulty, their accent foreign. After a week they changed their script and asked to know the status of the cheque. I continued ignoring their calls. Then they became menacing, referring to legal documents and threatening consequences. I kept track of the phone numbers they used – over a dozen different ones, with new numbers added continually. They phone many times a day – once it was sixteen calls in succession.
If you suspect you’re being scammed, do what I didn’t know I should do: first, disconnect from the internet, then turn off your computer, finally get help from a trusted tech support. Also, take photos of your computer screen when the scammers first make contact with you, and as often as possible in the course of their manipulation of your device. There’s useful information on the internet about recognizing scams – forewarned is forearmed.
I’m grateful to many people for helping me during this ordeal – the employees at my bank, Service Canada, BC Hydro, Fortis and Shaw. But my greatest debt of gratitude goes to the ‘hunter’ who slayed my particular wolf, an IT professional and a friend – thank you, Graeme!
Sabine Eiche is a local writer and art historian with a PhD from Princeton University. She is passionately involved in preserving the environment and protecting nature. Her columns deal with a broad range of topics and often include the history (etymology) of words in order to shed extra light on the subject.
