Reading · Bits & Pieces · RSS Amplifier

0:00

-16:43

The game of life is a competition between things you have to do and things you want to do.

To win the game, want to has to outscore have to. It’s a long season, though, and it goes back and forth. Sometimes the want to’s win; sometimes the have to’s win.

If you’re lucky like me, you can make your have to a want to. For instance, making a living is a have to for just about everyone. I make a living doing something I want to. That’s better known as doing something you love, a privilege I do not take for granted.

That’s the big picture. Day to day, it’s always a battle. I want to write a script, one of these stories, a joke. I want to watch a movie or a Cavaliers game, take a nap, go to the batting cage, eat ice cream. But I have to pay bills, reply to an email, pick up the farm share, sweep the front steps, make an appointment with the eye doctor, renew my passport.

Procrastination is the opponent. Inertia is the condition. Guilt is the motivator. Guilt is the ghost peering over your shoulder watching you do something you want to do, haunting you about that thing you have to do.

One day in late September this year, I resolved to banish the ghost and begin the morning performing various have to’s to clear the rest of the day for the want to’s. I psyched myself into an administrative state of mind, eager to knock them off my list one by one. First order of business? Make a list.

All right, I didn’t literally write a list, but I made a mental list. First on that list was to deal with an email about the purchase of an iPhone.

I most definitely had not bought an Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max. I checked the sender’s “no reply” address, which looked legit to me simply because it was not a series of random numbers and letters. The domain was We Transfer dot com a file sharing service with which I was somewhat familiar. What does We Transfer have to do with PayPal? Nothing. Red flag number one. But the email was official-looking enough not to scare me out of my administrative I’m-going-to-resolve-this-fucking-thing mindset.

I called the number, which was answered by a bright young man with an Indian accent, who told me his name was “Frank.” We are so used to American-based companies farming out their support services to call centers in India this not only did not raise any red flags, it helped bury the hook deeper. I figured “Frank” was an English-Americanized professional name he used to make it easier for provincial Americans like me to pronounce.

The young man was eager to get this all straightened out for me. He confirmed that they would refund the payment, but he needed me to download an app so that he could have access to my computer screen. This should have been the biggest red flag, but I was not about to lose momentum. Besides, he was so pleasant. At one point, while we were waiting for the app to download, he asked me how old I was. I found this more amusing than odd.

“I’m sixty-eight.”

“Wow, I never would have guessed you were that old.”

“Really? How old do I sound?”

“You sound like you’re in your twenties.”

I laughed. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five,” he said.

This kid was laying it on thick. Looking back, I realize it was probably a standard technique on his instruction sheet: If the mark has an AOL account, flatter them by saying how young they sound. This was completely unnecessary, because I was not suspecting foul play at this point. But it’s all part of the scam. Personalize the interaction to increase their trust in you.

I had some difficulty opening the app. I couldn’t find the buttons he was telling me to press. I don’t believe this was part of the technique, but it might as well have been. It made this old man want to prove he could operate the machinery properly. No one wants to be the grandpa on Zoom who can’t figure out how to unmute. And Frank was so patient with me, the darling boy.

While we were figuring out the buttons, I logged onto PayPal. I didn’t see the charge listed, so I asked what I thought was a sensible question.

“Why don’t I see this charge on my account?”

“Oh, that’s because they hide it from you. It’s underneath.”

Of course. Those clever bastards.

I was doing this at a table in the backyard. Shelley could hear me giving out numbers for various tasks Frank was instructing me to perform to get this all cleared up. She questioned whether it was wise to be doing this where the neighbors could hear over the fence. I assured her I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t giving out passwords. I was on a mission that was going to free up the rest of my day, and goddammit, I wasn’t about to be distracted. I was focused.

Focused and flattered.

At one point, Frank and I lost connection. My internet was unstable in the backyard, so I moved to the patio closer to the house and the router. I didn’t want to lose all our work. That would have wasted the morning. I hate this kind of “work,” but in the immortal words of Larry the Cable Guy, I was determined to “Get Er Done!”

I pause here to admit that I am essentially a trusting person or put less charitably: gullible. It’s part of my innate temperament but also a product of my life experience. I was not raised on the mean streets of an overcrowded city. I was raised in the expansive post-World War II exurbs. I have had a generally smooth life. I am not a suspicious person. I am not insecure. I have rarely felt vulnerable. I like to think the best of everyone.

For the most part, these qualities have led to good outcomes. I tend to get along with everyone. I’m capable of being friends even with people who don’t like each other. I take everyone at face value. Everyone is good in my eyes until they prove otherwise. In response, people tend to be on their best behavior with me. It’s not a bad way to go through life. If you’re lucky like me.

Many years ago, I was in the cashier line at our local Ralphs, and a young man struck up a conversation with me. I can’t remember the exact exchange, but it led to him inviting himself to our house to talk to me about a “project” the next evening. Shelley could not believe I invited a complete stranger into our house; someone I had met at the grocery store. This was not the small Midwest town I grew up in. This was LA. But the guy seemed fresh-faced, button-downed, non-threatening, nerdy even. He wore glasses. And he asked if he could bring his wife. So I said, “Sure.” I knew Shelley and Sam, who was a toddler at the time, weren’t going to be home that evening anyway. What was the big deal?

“What’s the project?” Shelley asked.

“I’m not sure.”

I was between gigs at the time, making the transition from performer to writer. Maybe I thought he had a side job for me.

“What if he’s coming over to kill you?”

Hm. Hadn’t thought about that. Good point. Now I was thinking about that. Of course he was coming over to kill me. Husband and wife killers, a real Tarantino movie. What an idiot I was. I couldn’t cancel, because this was pre-cell phone, and I didn’t have his number anyway. They were heading over whether I wanted them to or not. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Okay. I needed to protect myself… How?... Got it! Baseball bat! Of course. I knew how to swing a baseball bat. I could take them both out in pretty quick order. But I couldn’t just bop ’em over the head when they showed up. What if they weren’t coming to kill me? I had to wait ’til they made a move… wait ’til one signaled to the other, “It’s time.”

So I’d hide the bat. But where?... Somewhere out of sight, yet a place I could easily reach at the first sign of aggression.

They’d see it under our small dining room table. How about behind a door? I’d have to casually rise out of my chair and sidle over to the door… Would that give me enough time? This was going to require a lot of stealth. A lot of good acting. I couldn’t show any sign of fear or anxiety. I couldn’t afford any wasted motion.

I spent the moments before they arrived setting a metal softball bat in different spots in the house, practicing grabbing it, and swinging it in one fluid motion, bang, bang, double tap. At one point, I clipped a lamp stand on the back swing but managed to catch it before it toppled.

It hadn’t occurred to me until just now that if Shelley was so concerned this kinky couple, these modern-day Manson family members, were going to kill me, why didn’t she stay behind to protect me? I guess she figured I’d done this to myself. She’d go out and hose down the crime scene later.

The nerdy young man arrived and introduced his wife, a petite woman with short, dark hair and a shy friendly face. They were perfectly pleasant, smiling. But this could be all part of their MO. Put me at ease. Make me relax. Then out comes the gun. Before you know it, I’m on my knees. They order me to squeal like a piggy, then tie me to a chair, stuff a rag in my mouth and tape it all shut. One of them dances around the chair with the gun while the other one loots the house. You know the movie.

But so far, no red flags. Or was everything a red flag? No way to know. We sat at the dining room table. I checked the bat location out of the corner of my eye. He unfolded and smoothed out a large sheet of paper revealing an organizational chart that illustrated the advantages of working for… Amway.

Please. Kill me now.

Frank determined I had been overcharged by PayPal to the tune of $2,000. That seemed like a too-nicely rounded number, especially since the original false charge had been $899. Still, it elicited from me no more than a slight head tilt. I have to think Frank’s compatriots must have been gathered around his computer station like Vegas gamblers around a craps table cheering someone on a heater. Or like fly fishermen when one of them hooks a big one.

“Give him some line, let him tire himself out, tell him how young he sounds, then pull up.”

Frank instructed me to type in $2,000. I had to type it—for security purposes. I did as I was told: 2-0-0-0. But another zero popped up. Frank was alarmed.

“You typed in $20,000!”

I didn’t think I did, but sure enough, it read 2-0-0-0-0. I’d certainly mistyped plenty of things before, so it was possible. Frank panicked.

“Oh no, you have to fix this, or I’ll get fired!”

This was the moment of truth for the phisher. He had thus far played the benevolent support person, the home aide patiently pushing this gullible non-tech-savvy AOL Boomer in his virtual wheelchair. Now I could be the hero. I was the only one that could keep him from losing his job in India… or Indiana.

Frank told me I had to go to my bank and collect $18,000, and he would send someone to my house to pick it up. To make this happen smoothly, I had to stay on the line with him the whole way to the bank so he could monitor the transaction.

Ohhhh-kay, now I got it. That was the bright red flag where it finally dawned on Mr. Gullible.

I’d been had.

However, I told him I’d do it. I told him I’d fix it. Then I clicked off.

I didn’t lash out. I didn’t want to alert him that I had figured it out. I wanted him to wonder if the old man had just hit the wrong button again. I wasn’t sure what he still had access to. I wanted to buy some time, create a bit of confusion, not let him know I had slipped the hook.

I received a flurry of concerned voice messages and texts from someone claiming to be Frank’s supervisor pleading with me to call them back. My own little ruse was working, buying me some time to shut everything down and start changing passwords. Who knows what they saw on my screen? Shelley— patient on the outside, shaking her head and rolling her eyes on the inside—called the bank and froze our accounts. I took my laptop to the Apple Store and had them erase everything, which I could later restore from my backup module. From there, I went to our credit union to open new accounts with new account numbers. As I waited for someone to assist me at the bank, I noticed a sign warning that scams, especially those involving PayPal, had been on the rise.

No shit. And always be suspicious of phone numbers that have an 833 area code.

Mr. Gullible

Comments