His phone had been clogging up with messages.
These were not from his friends or in response to alarms or reminders that he might have set. No, they were from everywhere else! He was really sick of receiving all this unsolicited stuff, like you’ve won a grand prize or there’s a refund pending or a bitcoin opportunity or a package to collect or a tax office problem or a false message from a family member in need or you really need to verify something, before it’s too late! There’s so much to look out for… There are so many different kinds of frauds, like credit card, health care, charity, telemarketing, business, internet auction and investment. There are schemes that involve spoofing and phishing, skimming, advance fee requirements and that old time favourite, the pyramid scheme. There are scams like reverse mortgage, online accounts, internet shopping, great opportunities and false dating sites.
It seems like there are always golden opportunities to be found like the lottery, sweepstakes, competitions, charity, medical, gambling and employment. There are things like anti-aging products, illegal sports betting, counterfeit prescription drugs, but of course, there was always identity theft! He really was so tired of it all.
Anyway, this all changed for him on that particular morning. He was on the train, going into work when it happened. He found this special program on the internet while he was playing with his phone. It was guaranteed to put a complete stop to all this. He had time sitting there to read through the entire site; the instructions for setting it up, reviews by other users and an article by those that wrote the software program and how the whole thing had started.
By the time he’d finished reading it all, he was fired up and tempted to set it up on his phone as soon as he got into the office. Having time to think about it, he realised this wouldn’t be a good idea. What if he was in the middle of what looked like a fairly complex installation and he was caught doing it? What if he was interrupted and did something wrong, creating a problem with it that he was unable to undo? No, definitely not, he would wait until he got home.
But he knew exactly what he would do when the time came. At the finish of the installation, when the command line opened, he would type in the words: ‘unless it is really important, don’t text me.’ He imagined how good it’ll be to see that become part of the program…
There was a metallic squeal.
Then he woke up.