Dying Macbook

 Sunday 19th December. 2.35 p.m. My MacBook Air has finally given up and died. This must have been around Tuesday or Wednesday this week. Then my internet connection began to play up. There are three yellow lights on the router and when you have a steady internet connection all three will come on, but the centre one didn’t come on I realized that something was wrong somewhere, but what it was I didn’t have the faintest idea. I thought perhaps I should ring my service provider, Sky, to see if they could sort things out. I had noticed that sometimes, when watching streamed video, there was often a point when the video would freeze or stutter. I came to the conclusion that my internet connection needed upgrading to a faster connection. I would need to ring up Sky to help sort out the problem or even find an alternative internet provider. 

Then I got a telephone call. A lady with a vaguely foreign accent who told me she was from the Sky technical department. I have to admit, it was far too much of a coincidence that I was to get this call and was somewhat suspicious. I asked if she was real and she said she was. Then she put on the line a man with an equally foreign accent who said he could sort out my technical issue and that I would need to download an app from the App Store, which I did. It was when he asked me for a number which came up within th.is app that I became very suspicious and because I had real difficulties understanding his thick accent, I hung up.All I can say is, thank goodness I did.

The next day I decided to call Sky about the concerns I’d been having with my internet connection. It took me a while to find the right telephone number on the Sky website. You really have to search for it, because it is really buried in the most unlikely place.  It is certainty  not given prominence on the home page. It wasn’t long before I managed to speak to a human. (How I hate those voice-activated ‘menus.’ They never seem to recognize what I say. You end up eventually having to speak to a real person.)

I was told that Sky never rings customers in the fashion the fake callers had done. They would never ask you to give passwords, bank details or ask you to download anything, such as an app. It was too much of a coincidence that I had the call when I did. It was just as well I hung up when I did.

As a result of all this I have now upgraded my internet connection and have a new router which is now running and there is definitely a faster connection and the buffering has stopped when I'm watching streamed video. All set up and I  now have all my devices re-set with the new wifi password.