A week or so ago I started having McAfee pop ups. McAfee is a computer security company. Its job was to protect my computer. I did everything I knew to get rid of the pop ups but nothing worked.
So I called McAfee. Again, it's a security company. A nice lady got on my computer. It took me 15 minutes or so to realize this was not McAfee. My computer was being attacked - big time!!
They went to town on it. I asked them to get off several times, tried to shut it off, etc. They ignored me. Toward to end, which was at least an hour, they wanted to charge me $499.99 and this would allow me to use them to "protect" my Mac for the next five years. Yes, I did know at that point that they were crooks.
So, it may seem strange but I got out my credit card and paid them. Yes, it was stupid but I was in such bad shape I would have paid them almost ANYTHING to get them off my computer.
By that time I was having a full blown anxiety attack but I managed to call Vanguard. They'd already had so many attempts to get into my account that Vanguard had put a lock on it. I said, great. Leave it on until I call you back. Same thing with my bank.
Then, as one of my favorite stand up comics, Leann Morgan, says, "I had to take to the bed."
But the next morning I was ready for battle. I called Apple Support. I wanted them to screen share with me. They had a really tough time getting in but we eventually made it happen.
By the way, no one should ever be allowed to remotely change things on your computer. Apple gets in but does not make changes. They have a little arrow pointing me to where I should click. We worked together for a couple of hours to get rid of these bad guys and clean up the computer. The invaders were like the movie "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once." (By the way, in the Meniere's Disease groups I'm a part of, they warned us patients not to see this movie; that it would bring on an attack. I haven't seen the movie but, unfortunately had the real life experience.)
After Apple assured me the villains had been vanished, I changed all my important passwords. Then called my bank that's associated with my credit card and filed a claim for them to delete the $499.99 charge. After investigating, they did. I also requested a new credit card and deactivated the old one.
I then contacted Experian and the other two credit companies, and had my accounts frozen.
Yesterday morning I looked at my online bank account and found that these people had re-applied the $499.99 with my card. So I called the fraud line once more. It took a couple of hours but I filed another claim. When we were finishing up on the phone the Fraud person said this was a popular "computer pirate" and they preyed on a particular demographic. I said "you mean as in little old ladies?" He laughed.
***
