How I very nearly became the victim of an online scam

Please don’t suppose I’m unaware I’ve been an idiot. I recount what happened to me last week without expecting your sympathy or understanding, and this account carries only the very slightest plea in mitigation: the suggestion that it could happen to you too, even if you don’t think you’d ever be so stupid.

Because I certainly didn’t think I was. I’m not IT-illiterate, I’m not particularly slow-witted, I’ve attended ‘take online security seriously’ lectures, and I do know about the new ways thieves steal from the unsuspecting these days. I’m forewarned.

So I thought myself proof against such attempts when the landline phone rang on Friday morning. My partner had just gone riding, so when the caller said she was from BT, and believed I was dissatisfied with our fluctuating broadband speeds, I assumed he had made a complaint because he is indeed dissatisfied.

She sounded as though she was in a call centre in India (you could hear a noisy background of calls) and spoke with a thick accent.