Wednesday morning, the day before Thanksgiving, Mae awoke, set her hair in curlers and switched on her laptop. A message appeared. It said her Safari web browser had encountered a problem, and a link offered to connect the 83-year-old to the Apple Computer Company. Mae clicked it.
She didn’t know it yet, but Mae, like millions of Americans each year, had fallen into the grip of fraudsters. Over the next 10 hours, the criminals would try several methods to steal her money.
