Every time I get a scam call, I bust out my ancient laptop that takes half an hour to even boot. I keep them on the line and talk about anything and make up fantastical stories. Once it’s booted, I have them take me step by step through everything as if I’m ninety-seven years old and have never encountered a computer before.

My record is four hours — four hours they would have otherwise spent scamming an actual elderly person.

I also got one once where we talked about metal bands, and he gave me an Indian band I’d never heard of and actually quite enjoy. I pleaded with him to stop this scam because he sounded so nice, but the call disconnected; I assume a “supervisor” stepped in.

My sister is craving a cheddar jalapeño bagel, so my mom decides to go to a chain café to get one for her. It is ten minutes before closing, and they go through the drive-thru. My mom orders the cheddar bagel for my sister, plus some other things for the rest of the people at home, including a coffee cake.

Employee: “You’re lucky; you’re getting the last ones of everything you’re ordering!”

My mom pulls up to the window to pay and receive the food, and the drive-thru gal — about nineteen — is crying and apologizing profusely.

Employee: “The people in front of you stole the food!”

Mom: “How did that happen?!”

Employee: “I made a mistake and I was about to give them the wrong order, but I realized my mistake before handing it over and said so out loud. They then reached out and grabbed the bag from me! They said, ‘You can’t have it back now; it’s cross-contaminated!’ And then, when I called for my manager, he was busy, and their order wasn’t ready yet, so I just had them pull up to wait for their food and they did.”

My mom is a really loving person, so she tries to reassure the employee.

Mom: “It’s okay, we don’t really need the food. And I’m not mad, really!”

In the meantime, the manager comes over to ask what is happening. The employee tells him and he is shocked.

Manager: “Is the [Car] parked out front the people who took the food?”

Employee: “Yes.”

He started going out to talk to the people in the car, and at that moment, they stepped on it and zipped out of the parking lot.

So now, those people had not only stolen my mom’s order, which were the last items, but they hadn’t even received their order! But the good news is that the manager had been saving a cheddar bagel for himself and gave it to my mom, free of charge.

I was working as a copier service rep. There was this slew of fraudulent calls for fake toner. It was pretty much the same spiel.

Caller: “This is [Caller] from [Company]. Your boss has left us a note to call you when the price of toner goes up. It will go up within a week, so can I send you the four bottles of toner that were reserved for you?”

We received training about it so we would know how to handle the customers that got scammed.

Of course, said toner wreaked havoc in any copiers, and it cost the customers repairs plus having to buy good toner. One customer even tried to have his toner refunded but the scammer laughed before hanging up.

Now, this happened in the late 1980s, so there was no Internet and especially no social media whatsoever.

That particular customer had been had once and they learned their lessons. I happened to be there for regular maintenance on the copier when the phone rang. This was an open area of desks with multiple accountant clerks and the main receptionist/administrative assistant.

Assistant: ″Hello?” *Pauses* “Yes.” *Pauses* “Oh, yes, pretty good, thank you. It was much needed. Hang—” *Pauses* “Okay, I’ll transfer you to my boss; he’s the one making these decisions. Just hold on.″

She transferred the call. Then, she looked at me.

Management: ″Hey, [My Name], I just got a call from those toner scammers, and I transferred him to [Boss] because he wants to have a serious word with him, but my question is, he knew I’m just back from vacations? How the h*** does he knows that?

Me: ″Oh, that’s simple. You noticed how when they call, they speak as if you’re good friends, that you’re a regular and stuff? Well, he probably called while you were on vacation. Whoever answered said you weren’t there. He probably asked if you were sick or something, acting like he was a long-time friend of yours. Whoever answered, figuring he knew you personally because he was so friendly, probably said something along the lines of, ‘She’s on vacation and she’ll be back at this date.’ He took good note of that, so the day you’re back from your vacations, he calls. It’s that simple.″

One of the accountant clerks raised her head and just said a faint, trailing:

Accountant Clerk: ″Oh…″

In my mind, I was screaming and pointing, ″There! That’s her! She’s the guilty one!″

Be careful, folks, and with social media, it’s even easier for scammers to get information about you.

I work for a fairly small, newer branch of a much larger company. One of my coworkers — a low-level manager — has a habit of asking people to purchase things for the company and then “forgetting” to send them along when payroll comes around. This results in a whole circus of arguments and frustration from everyone.

One day, he reaches out to me via the company messaging app.

Coworker: “Hey, can you go get [specific expensive ink]? I’d go, but I have a mountain of work to do.”

Me: “Did you place an order?”

Coworker: “No, just go pick it up for me.”

Me: “And you’ll pay me back?”

[Coworker] calls me.

Coworker: “Are you going or not?”

Me: “Are you paying me back?”

Coworker: “It’s for work!”

Me: “So, just say, ‘Yes, I’m going to approve the expense,’ and I’ll go get it.”

Coworker: “Jesus, [My Name], just go!”

Me: “No.”

I hang up. He goes back to messaging me.

Coworker: “We really need that ink.”

Me: “Then you go get it. I’m done with this conversation until I have it in writing that I will be reimbursed.”

He stopped talking to me. He convinced someone else to go instead and “forgot” to tell payroll. Several people have gone to Human Resources about his forgetfulness, but nothing has been done yet. I suspect it’s because every time he doesn’t submit an expense, the company hopes they will be able to keep the money and [Coworker] looks like he has a great handle on the budget.

I come walking into my office area one morning, and my supervisor and one of the other floor managers are talking. They chat with me around all the time, so I get to hear interesting things that happen around work.

The other floor manager tells my supervisor that he was up on the mezzanine early this morning because he’s trying to find some tools that he knows for sure are here, but he hasn’t been able to locate them. (There’s a rumor going around work that some folks have been stealing tools, but nothing definitive has been proven yet.) He said when he was up on the mezzanine he noticed a few shelves in the back corner that were sitting away from the wall, but there was no way to look behind them without actually moving one of the shelves.

So, he moved a shelf so he could see behind them. The area behind the shelves was maybe a five-foot-by-five-foot space — not very big — just enough room for a small desk, chair, and computer. To his surprise, he found a computer that was up and running, and connected to it was a monitor, mouse, and keyboard, and the computer was plugged into some kind of cable box — his words; what he was talking about was a twenty-four-port switch — that had a lot of cables in it.

He checked the computer by moving the mouse and the monitor woke up, and he was now looking at the CCTV software and a dozen different cameras that were currently active on the screen. He had some experience with the CCTV software and noticed that whoever had been using this computer had access to the drives that store all the video, along with access and control to all the cameras. He tells my supervisor that they’ve been having issues with some cameras “going out” in certain areas; they come back on by themselves sometimes or they have to reset the CCTV system to get them to reboot. He’s now thinking someone has been deliberately disabling cameras so you can’t see what’s happening and possibly even deleting footage.

My supervisor and the other manager call out to the IT guy. They relay all the information to him.

IT Guy: “So what? I don’t care. It’s not my job to secure that computer.”

My supervisor knows I have computer experience and that I’m fixing computer issues all the time because our IT guy sucks. She asks me what I think about the IT guy’s response and asks what we should do about the computer.

Me: “At the very least, the computer needs to be password locked, and only owners and management that normally have access to the CCTV system should know the password. Next, since the computer is plugged into the switch and I don’t know who okayed it to be put there, I wouldn’t move it, but I would at least take the mouse, keyboard, and monitor off of it. After that, let ownership decide what needs to be done.”

The next day, the IT guy came walking through my office area and he was pissed. He had to go up on the mezzanine to unhook the computer and remove it from the system. He was complaining to my supervisor about it and how it shouldn’t be his responsibility to handle this issue.

Surprisingly, once that computer was removed from the network, the cameras were no longer “going out,” and the issue with missing tools had dropped dramatically.