I saved someone a lot of money today.

I saved someone a lot of money today, simply because I was in the right place at the right time.  And this should serve as a warning to my readers to be careful of scams being propagated via the internet.

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Going to the dentist is always an expensive day for me.  Today would be more expensive than usual, as I needed both a new filling and a crown on a nearby tooth.  So, I knew that I would be spending over $2,500 for a 2 hour visit.  What I didn't know was that I'd be the catalyst in a chain of events which would prevent an old person from getting scammed by someone claiming to represent a business entity.

My dentist is in walking distance of my apartment, so I got there at the stroke of 1 pm.  As I entered, I saw a gentleman struggling with some financial issue working with "tech support" on the other end of the line.  Overhearing what this man was saying, he was told that 2 payments were made from his bank account, and that the fellow at the other end needed his account number to refund the money.  Of course, the "tech support" person was looking to have a program run on this person's phone to take control of it, scan the phone for financial information, and then suck the money out of all of this person's bank accounts. 

I knew that something had to be done, and I was in luck.  The receptionist was coming back to the dental office with lunch for the gang.  Seeing her as she was about to enter the building, I rushed to the door and told her what I thought was going on and asked for help.  A minute later, I was escorted into the room where my dentist would do his magic, so I could only get the rest of the story after my work was done.  Thankfully, the receptionist got involved and saw the signs of a scam about to start.  (Think of remote control programs which take over a computer or a phone.)  And then she told the gentleman about to be scammed to hang up the phone and reboot it immediately.  Next, she told the man to check his account with the organization, and found that no transactions had been applied to his account.  Phew!  He was narrowly saved from a scammer, and all thanks to the receptionist who knew how to step in and take control of the situation.

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Sadly, none of this could save me the money I had to spend to have my teeth repaired.  But I'm glad that I was able to stop a scam in progress.  I've provided the following links to help my readers identify similar scams and protect themselves: 

https://www.fdic.gov/consumer-resource-center/2023-10/scammers-and-fake-banks

https://www.firstcitizens.com/personal/insights/security/top-financial-scams-targeting-consumers 

https://www.wellsfargo.com/privacy-security/fraud/bank-scams/?utm_medium=www-redirect&utm_source=privacy-security--fraud--bank-scams--index

Additionally, one can also watch the YouTube channel, "Scammer Payback" for more information on internet scams and how they work to stop them. 

 

Computer Interface Problems

 

No matter how programmers try their best, they will always screw up a little.  In my case, the programmer who designed the aa.com website made the page where security questions are saved not work with my internet security program (Kaspersky) on Firefox, Chrome, and MS Edge.  It could be a problem with another of the programs I'm using on my computer, but I was able to enter this data by using the Opera browser.

Sadly, there is no way to test software to run on every device.  But I feel that many programmers could do a better job - both when designing web sites (and their underlying software) and in internet security packages.  Sometimes, I'd like to have an easy way to disable all browser extensions for use on a particular web page AND disable most of the security checks as well.  Obviously, this is not an approach for the feint hearted, as one can do this for a web site run by a scammer.

It's very unfortunate that we need complex interfaces to perform simple computer functions on the web. Gone are the days where we could submit information without a Captcha and without multi factor verification.  And this is for the better, as more of our lives are managed via the computer than they were even 5 years ago.  We need to be secure, and this complexity is there for our benefit.

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Regarding the aa.com site....

I tried using my system with all of the major browsers.  However, I also use a version of Opera which has no browser extensions.  I'll bet that if my security package didn't tie itself in so tightly with the other browsers, that I'd have been infected with malware by now....