Monday 14 May 2012

Digital Excess


At the weekend I was called upon to play "help-desk" to Big Nana, who had received a telephone call from somebody claiming to be from Hewlett Packard who wanted to "fix" her computer remotely.

Once we had established that she had not compromised her security settings by giving this person any rights over her PC, she mentioned in passing that she is getting a lot more spam emails these days. She started to enumerate the various offers from Nigerian officials and pharmaceutical suppliers that she is being bombarded with and I was horrified. Older people should be protected from this stuff.

"You shouldn't be subjected to all this! Surely your BT Account should automatically divert all this insulting filth to you Spam folder?", I said.

"It does", she replied. "That's where I'm reading it".

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gotta love 'em!

Macy said...

Bless, my mum never managed to open her e-mail.
Maybe a good thing in retrospect...

Pat said...

It's very sad the way these low life take advantage of old people.
I find myself deleting everything I'm not familiar with.

Z said...

I haven't told the Sage how to find his spam folder. I frisk it myself once in a while.

Anonymous said...

hahahaha! But seriously this spam stuff is out of control and evermore tricky to work out if spam or a con - I feel sorry for people who get caught out or who don't have the way withall to work out what is what.

Rog said...

Dinah: Endless fun!

Macy: I'm always having to clean the Tippex off her screen.

Pat: Quite right. Some of it is getting a bit too plausible though.

Z: I hope you don't find too many eBay purchases in there.

Gabby: I like the guy who had a Nigerian Bank Spammer offering him 1 million dollars. He actually rang them and asked if they did free pens.

Roses said...

My blogging pal Inspector Monkfish got that call from Microsoft. Apparently, he was so horrified his PC got a virus they hung up on him. He regretted it immediately that he had fun instead of giving them a bollocking.

I love reading my spam folders. I've won so much money, I'm living a life of luxury in the Maldives, where I've just bought my own island.

Martin said...

As someone (probably someone on a helpdesk) said, "There's no answer to that."

Unknown said...

I do admire dear old ladies!!!

Rog- changing the subject, I have, I think successfully, obeyed all your suggestions regarding my 'feed'. Could you just check and advise me if this has improved matters.
Either way I am very grateful for your assistance. Thanks. Mike.

Rog said...

Roses: It's not Canvey Island is it?

Martin: It will go down in helpdesk lore.

Mike & Ann: Good-o! Let's see if the Armoury moves up the chart on the right hand side of this page....

Nota Bene said...

Excellent....

mig bardsley said...

I got one of those a while ago and I asked how they knew about the virus on my computer. They hung up.

I shall view spammers with less exasperation though, now I realise they provide entertainment for some.