An easy way to fight off COVID infection. I don’t test ’em, I just report ’em.

How to look 30 years younger. Ditto.

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Y’know how people reveal a lot of stuff online that is embarrassing? I am about to do that, too.

This week my printer/scanner stopped communicating with my computer. This happens 2 or 3 times a year. I have always eventually got them to reconnect by rebooting the computer and rebooting the printer, not to mention waving a dowsing stick and burning a little sage for luck.

This time I decided to go to Ricoh, the brand of the printer/scanner, for help. I went to their website and opened the chat function. The response I got in the chat asked for my phone number so the technician could call and walk me through the steps. I did that and got the call.

The technician was obviously South Asian, which really didn’t mean much one way or another — Ricoh could easily have outsourced their customer service to a call center in Hyderabad or somewhere.

I was on the phone with the tech for over an hour, and I cannot tell you everything he did. It was probably intended to baffle me with bullsh!t and it worked.

When he had supposedly *fixed* my problem (he made a document print) he transferred me to another South Asian guy in their billing section who wanted me to pay $180 for the help. That should have raised a big red flag, but gullible me went ahead and entered my credit card info.

This is where it gets really embarrassing. The charge was refused — TWICE! — as possibly fraudulent. But Dummy Me overrode the refusal and the Bad Guys got their money.

Temporarily.

After texting with Younger Son, the computer technician, and telling Smokey the whole sad story, I called my credit card issuer to dispute the charge. The person I spoke with was very pleasant and sympathetic, the charge was taken off my account, and they will send me a new card with a different number.

Anyway, I told you all to tell you this: the customer service guy, besides taking care of my fraud claim, told me about IRLrosie on YouTube. She scams the scammers. Go watch her videos — they are hilarious!