By Larry MagidA  slightly shorter version of this post appeared in the Mercury NewsI was impacted by a scam this week that didn’t cost me money or expose my data, but did take an enormous emotional toll, including 20 minutes of terror. The combination of the crying woman who sounded like she could have been my wife, the fact that the call came from what appeared to be her phone and his knowing she was in San Francisco along with his story was all I needed to go to some very dark places. ” I didn’t do that because both my phones were in use and I truly believed the call was coming from my wife’s phone