Thread: My dad is an idiot, got scammed

He was trying to update his Garmin GPS. He goes to a site, downloads some updater. The updater says there's problems and he has to call some phone number. Calls it, talks to some guy who has him install a program to let him take control of his pc to fix the issue. He downloads that program, installs it, and the gives the guy his password and login so he can fix the issue (smh). The guy logs on remotely and my dad says he didn't know what he was doing because everything was flying by. Then the guy tells him there's a lot of issues on his pc that he needs to fix before the Garmin can be updated. At this point my dad realizes somethings up and says he hung up on him. Tells me he's glad he didn't let the guy do anything or he might have been hacked. Turns out the site was some scam site that my dad didn't look at the url close enough. I'm just facepalming the entire time. I told him he should just wipe the drive and start over, the guy could have done anything and could still have access. He said he didn't think so. I asked him if he even uninstalled the program that the guy had him install.. nope. Run a virus checker? Nope. I told him to at least turn the PC off as he's going away for a couple weeks on vacation

boomers always fall for those tricks once a woman called me with a heavy eastern euro accent trying to convince me she was from windows support and that my computer was having a problem.

it's the exact same scam I know what her next step was going to be to make do something on my pc and give the acces.

People are way too trusting.

I had to tell my parents straight up no one will ever contact them saying they're calling to help with their PC. It's a scam 100% of the time.

Unless you personally initiate the contact it's a scam.

Originally Posted by rootcon

Yep. My dad won't listen to me but always does what some stranger over the phone tells him to do.

I have hear this from a lot of people.

Make sure you shut the PC off yourself then, if he's going away who knows what the scammer can do if he still has access, maybe he could even overheat the CPU and cause a fire in an extreme case.

Originally Posted by rootcon

Good idea. He gets mad at my mom for closing his programs, he gets the windows sized and moved where he wants (which takes a while). I'll pull the ethernet cable on the back when I'm over there today to check on things.

if I were you I would reinstall his windows before they get access to his finances.

Originally Posted by rootcon

Good idea. He gets mad at my mom for closing his programs, he gets the windows sized and moved where he wants (which takes a while). I'll pull the ethernet cable on the back when I'm over there today to check on things.

Just tell him the scammer did it because he still has access lol

Boomers truly are an idiotic generation that is too naive. They're naive because they grew up during a time of relative prosperity. I wouldn't describe them as too trusting, rather, i would describe them as too lazy to pay attention to detail.

They have this lazy attitude of "i'll only worry about it if something goes wrong." Sorry, but this attitude aint gonna fly in the digital era, by the time you notice something is wrong, scammers will have already made off with your personal info..


My dad did something similar and I had to format his hard drive and yell at him.

It's the same situation with him, he'll trust the word of a random stranger over his own children. This may be a boomer mentality....