A young man answers a call from a scammer who says his devices have been hacked out of West Virginia, Russia, and China, stays on the line for eighty-two minutes, and by the end is the one asking the questions.
Synopsis
Wes is at home when the phone rings. The man on the other end has bad news about his laptop, his phone, his smart TV, and his Alexa, all of which have been accessed in the last 48 hours by five hackers working out of West Virginia, Russia, and China. He gives Wes a badge number. Wes stays on the line.
An hour in, the call is transferred to Chloe at Bank of America, who has found a $15,000 charge made on the account at 4:40 that morning. Her fix is to cancel the charge by making the same charge again, then wire the money to an account held by a man named Samuel Reed.
“That account will be in somebody else’s name and that person will not be existing.”
Chloe
Wes never sends the money. What he does is keep asking questions, and somewhere past the eightieth minute the call turns around. John, the man with the badge number, talks about sci-fi movies, about cooking, about wanting to play football in a full stadium for his country, and about what happens to him if he stops working the network.
Credits
Cast
- Joel McLaughlin as Wes
- John White as Himself
- McAuley Tucker as The Operator
- Chloe as Herself
Crew
- Directed by McAuley Tucker
- Written by McAuley Tucker & Joel McLaughlin
- Produced by McAuley Tucker & Joel McLaughlin
- Director of Photography McAuley Tucker
- Edited by McAuley Tucker
Details
- Format Short Film
- Genre Comedy, Drama
- Runtime 6:23
- Year 2026
- Country Canada
- Language English
