so my work email is listed on a publicly available website because I work at a public school, this means I get added to random email lists a lot and also get spam and phishing emails, our IT does a pretty good job of blocking most of the nonsense, but sometimes things still sneak in

so last week I get a random email titled "Help installing linux?" with the body text:
" I just bought a new laptop. I want to install kali linux on it alongside windows but I'm worried I might mess something up.
If you have the time, could we meet so you can walk me through it?
Thank you in advance."

which is immediately a weird email for me to get because
1. it's not from a student email, it's a random yahoo email, the name is just an actual human name with no numbers, so it didn't get immediately cause by spam for that

2. the human name isn't a name I recognize at all, and the email doesn't mention my name or their name at all, so it's unlikely to be a former student using a personal email for contact

3. even if it was a former student, I teach a singular comp sci class that doesn't work at all with OS systems, so none of my students would suspect that I even know how to mess with any of the various Linux forks

4. the last time I fucked around with Linux myself was over a decade ago, but I know enough to know that Kali isn't really "baby's first multi-booting experience", it's designed for like digital forensics and cyber security shit

so like, not really something you stick onto a laptop to fuck around with Linux OS on a personal laptop

so, I do what I do with most spam that isn't an immediate phishing or security risk, I ignore it and delete the email

fast forward to today and I get another email from the same random yahoo account:
"Well thanks a lot. Since you didn't respond I tried it by myself and ruined a brand new $1000+ laptop. Fuck you you disgusting piece of shit."

which I also deleted, because at this point it's even more obvious that this isn't a real person asking for help

because 1. that's hella rude to send to a professional email who isn't even qualified or obligated to help you with this anyway

2. again, it's been a decade, but you have to be really bad at what you're doing to fuck up setting up multi-booting so bad that the computer isn't salvageable, at worst you might have to factory reset, but if it's a new laptop, then all you've lost is time, not data

3. it's just really funny to me for someone to use "$1000" as a scare tactic for "you broke my really expensive thing and must pay", my guy, do you know what most actual decent laptops that are actual computers and not shitty chromebooks cost right now?

"i did it myself and broke my own thing"
congrats, that sounds like a you problem!

i don't think they even tried with that one lmao

yeah, I don't feel bad, regardless of if this was actually legit and not just a weird phishing scheme