Elderly in Alabama Targeted In 'Child Porn' Scam

MOBILE, Ala.—Targeting the elderly with various phone and email scams has become something of a cottage industry here in the U.S.. Whether it's about cemetery plots, fake charities, phony cheap meds, nonexistent lotteries, reverse mortgages or investments in "surefire" stocks, fast talkers have managed to rake in billions from unsuspecting seniors. How do the scammers find them? One website commenter suggests that it's because the scammers call land lines, and what millennial worth his/her iPhone would be caught dead talking on a land line? But apparently such scammers have become a major problem in Alabama, likely because 1) there are a lot of old people living down there, and B) the state ranks fifth from the bottom in educational achievement, with just 82 percent graduating high school, 22 percent obtaining a bachelor's degree, and just shy of 8 percent getting master's or doctoral degrees. And then, of course, there's the fact that their chief justice is Roy Moore, the jackass who claims that Alabama courts don't have to follow federal law or Supreme Court orders, especially when it comes to same-sex marriage. So perhaps it's not too surprising that the Mobile Police Department has been getting an increasing number of calls from elderly folks who've been contacted by a "Microsoft representative" claiming that their computers running Windows have been downloading child porn or "or other dangerous materials," according to Mobile Police spokesman Officer Terence Perkins. The cure? Just send the scammer $400 and the "illegal downloads" will stop—as if there ever were any to begin with. The Mobile cops suggest calling them or your local police department if you believe you've been targeted by the scam.