Me and my computer. . . .

I'm not sure, but I think I was just scammed.

My computer has been running very slow lately and I was becoming increasingly annoyed watching that little blue circle go round and round. I found myself deleting more e-mail than I was reading, rather than sit here, tapping my foot, waiting for the latest joke (that I had already received last week) to download.

Every time I would turn off my computer, which is actually rarely, a window would come up for something called Cyber Defender, offering a free scan. Today I decided to click on it and when the scan was complete I was informed that I had. . and I'm not making this up. . .980 problems in my software. And for $34.50 they would do a complete cleaning that would absolutely, not a doubt in the world, make my computer run faster. Because I was so frustrated, I decided to go for it, entered my credit card information, and downloaded the cleaning program.

When the receipt came in the next e-mail, I had apparently made a total purchase of $54.95, not $34.50. I am not altogether an idiot, so I called the number on the receipt to question how the amount changed so quickly. Apparently I had not "opted out" from the check mark on something called "Optimizer". . .and lo and behold, my computer has been Optimized. OK, it seemed to be running a helluva lot faster and I was willing to go for the extra charge.


Except that the very nice woman named Patty from Cyber Defender, who told me she was my Personal Activator, informed me that I had a terrible virus that was eating up my files and for $279 I could have one year of technical support that would include a $50 Visa gift card. I said thank you very much but I didn't want to spend that much and didn't need a Visa gift card.


Patty assured me that this virus could do away with my entire computer in the next five minutes and since I only wanted a one time technical help to rid me of the file devouring creature, I could have a special price of $235 without the Visa gift card. In desperation, because she sounded so concerned for the life of my computer, I agreed to have the work done later in the afternoon when I was back in the office. She told me she would personally call me before any virus extermination was begun.


My computer program is Vista and it occurred to me that I had seen a free program called Malware on it that will scan for viruses. I pulled it up and scanned. It took a little more than 5 minutes and the damned thing actually scanned 50,501 items. And guess what? It didn't find a single virus. Not to mention that the computer is now running fine. It obviously did need a cleaning.

I just called Cyber Defender back to cancel the $235 technical program. Not so easy. I have now spoken to three different people and still haven't gotten confirmation that they will give me a refund, even though they haven't done the work. My next call is to Master Card to inform them that I am disputing the charge.

Like I said at the beginning. I think I just got scammed. And I bet I'm not the only one this has happened to. The threat of my computer crashing was enough to talk me into anything. Talk about co-dependency. Not too smart, guys. And I'm not even blonde.
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Photo: Can't live with it. Can't live without it.