Talking to my dad today (70 but also tech savvy) he saw this in AARP magazine (retiree thing, pay membership, get discounts and stuff, and this magazine). He did some looking into it, out of curiosity (because it sounded like a scam and he was bored, rather than to replace his T-Series Thinkpad). It's a Celeron, 32GB eMMC, 2GB RAM, 802.11n, 1mp webcam on a 22" 1080p touchscreen running Linux with a kiosk sort of restrictive overlay. If you think "hey, non-tech-savvy seniors don't need beefy specs, that doesn't seem too bad for $300 or so", then you're right. Thing is, it's $1100. Eleven. Hundred. Dollars.... Plus tax... And $50 shipping. Part of me thinks it's terrible they're preying on seniors like that. The other part of me commends them for going all-in with the old people tropes in the ad. I also have to think that these days, I'm not even sure ripping off OAPs in that fashion is sustainable - maybe 20 years ago, but surely a big chunk of those over 60 if not entirely tech-savvy, are more than capable of operating an iPad.
What came to mind when I read that ad and what you had to add to it? What a load of condescending bullsh1t and an unmitigated rip-off.
Something my mother in law would buy and be calling me for. Seriously she does have an all in one and can't understand how you can have the Internet without "Internet Explorer"
Thankfully my mum lets me sort out her laptop buying. Yesterday she phoned up needing help with finding her home button and, I quote, "the Google, i've lost the Google".
I'm sure some poor soul is going to be buying that somewhere. But at the same time Ipads basically own that market already, to the point that every tablet from every brand is an ipad to many and who needs a compter anway? We have Ipads now. Cue my mum applying for the same bank loan multiple times on her tablet because she's one of those idiots who keeps pressing the button when what she expects to happen doesn't happen quickly enough. One of these might be good for her actually.
Yes, for most people it is indeed a complete scam. But: To be fair, if they stapled together a Linux distro restrictive enough to keep the kind of OAPs who would click on Facebook personality tests safe then that is easily worth $1100 (even if it came with no hardware whatsoever).
Sort of related: my father (70) was almost taken in by a scam in the last week or so. One of those emails that said 'Your account has been restricted - please respond within 24 hours' or something. He actually called up the phone number and spoke to someone (racism alert: Indian) for 'a while' before eventually cottoning on. He said that no important information had been given fortunately, but there again, having not heard the conversation, I'm not quite convinced. What has me worried is that something that was obviously a scam to me wasn't to him. It's made me think: when (if) I reach 70, will I be vulnerable to whatever scam is haute couture at the time? I'm seeing the folks' this weekend, since the CoronAIDS terrorism level has been dropped to mauve or something. Might do a little training session with them.
It's quite simple. Just teach them to say "contact me by letter if it's serious" and hang the phone up. They cold call my mother all of the time. Amazon, Talktalk (thanks to an old leak) and so on. Only they are all in India. She did ask "But what if it *is* Talktalk?" and I said well just tell them to send you a letter. That's inbound covered. The only time any of them call is to try and sell you something or get you in a new contract, so hanging up won't hurt any. For the outbound? quite simple, never. Never ever call any numbers on the screen.
Had another call from 'BT' because we had 'trouble with our internet'. Yeah, not with BT of course. It's quite fun finding new ways to wind them up, a fun lockdown hobby. Mum has been warned, she listens thankfully.
