someone's just phoned up to help me fix my pc.
i'm trying to spin him along.
what should i say
"Sounds interesting. Just hold on a minute - I need to turn the kettle off"
Then just put the phone down but don't hang up.
thats what i normally do with salesmen
this one wants me to open eventvwr
i'm just trying to play with him 😛
ask him what he's wearing
Complement his accent. Then start asking personal questions, age, hair and eye colour. Before moving on to the "what are you wearing" and the heavy breathing
hes just about to pass me on to the technical department
Ask him if he can fix the driver up date problem with Nvidia cards.
Then start talking about ATI cards and see if he catches on.
he's just mentioned the 80 quid charge
Pretend to be a detective inspector, and inform them they've just phoned the central crime scene in a murder investigation:
now he wants my type logmein123.com in to the run box
When he says "right click" you say "just to confirm - in that box you want me to write "click" thats c l i c k is it?"
Ask him for his personal mobile number. He will ask why, then tell him, "I want to call you at an inconvenient time and interrupt him for no good reason for a nice chat".
i've just told him i'm on a mountain bike forum, that's why i'm a bit slow replying.
he told me he's in to bikes, but doesn't own one
Depending on how bored I am I usually string them along until they try to get me to let them log on to my PC remotely and then tell them I work in IT security and I'm going to call the police. They usually get a bit upset at that point.
If I could be bothered I'd set up a VM for the next one and see if I could get him to log in to it to see what they actually do.
he's just told me he used to have a harley davidson x16
it was 1600 bhp
Just think of all the swear words you can lauch down the phone at him when you tell him where to go. Thats what i did, great stress relief from the rest of the lovely people that call you to sell you stuff you don't want.
he's got his supervisor now
is he into bikes as well?
he told me he's in victoria, london
i asked if its snowing
yes
how deep is it
3 feet
tell him not to look at your goat and midget porn while he's rooting about your pc.
Tell him you're running Haiku.
He's gone now.
Sorry about the lack of capitals earlier, I was typing one handed.
45 minutes of me acting a bit dull, asking the same question several times and asking irrelevant questions before he ended up calling me something that wouldn't get past the swear filter and hanging up. I think that's a record for me.
Bit naive but what's the target of the scam?
A). Get your credit card details.
B). Get you pc login credentials.
Nice one Graham. *Applause, applause*
Liking TJ's "right click" trick a lot!
He was very insistent on getting me to commit to paying before he would pass me on to the technical department, so I guess the main part of the scam is just to get credit card details.
They're obviously aiming for people who are a bit dull, so it's fairly easy to string them along by asking dull questions.
The first guy seemed a bit unsure about whether he was in Michigan or London at first, then settled on London.
I was trying to get the supervisor to tell me what time of day it was and what the weather was like where he was, but he got very defensive as if he's used to people threatening to come and find him.
what's the target of the scam?
IME the basic ploy seems to be to get you to open the Windows error log, show you all the errors (there are nearly always some) and claim that they're caused by your computer being compromised. Then they use this to scare you into paying for an unnecessary support arrangement. Some of them try to get you to allow their "support" people log onto your PC remotely through a web-based remote access tool as a service that "would normally cost you £xx, but we'll do it this time for free just to show you we're legit", after which anything could happen.
My record so far is 3 of these calls in one day. No idea where they get the numbers from.
Ok so probably both A and B.
Rio, yeah, that's what he got me doing.
I'm no computer expert, but I'm fairly sure you can't do any damage just by looking at stuff, so I went along with it that far and typed "eventvwr" in to the run box.
When he told me to type "www.logmein123" though, that's when I started bluffing and trying to search on google, talk to him and post on here all at the same time.
Looking at the event viewer won't cause any harm. Last time I got one of these calls I double-clicked on one of the events because I wanted to look at the details of what it was (a problem starting the bonjour service) and told him I'd done that and he went all into a tizzy - "no, you mustn't click on them, you could make it worse, that's only for experts, only do what I say". All a load of rubbish! They're preying on those with a lack of knowledge, really ******'s me off.
I had one of these the other day. apparently my computer had logged a problem with microsoft that meant they needed my login details and details of my internet connection (passwords etc.)
He hung up fairly quickly when I questioned why my macbook would be logging faults with microsoft but not before he tried to convince me that mac OS is mearly a skin for windows and that macbooks are actually made by microsoft!!!!!
where would i find the event viewer
I had one on for 20 mins one time in a circular argument about which of my 3 PC's was showing the errors.
'the one you use for the internet'
'i use them all on the internet'
'the main one then'
'which main one?'
'the one you use most for the internet'
'but one is a work pc one is my wife's and one is mine. They all get used'
'your one then'
'work or home?'
'whichever you use on the internet'
'we use all of them'
and repeat......
i told one guy that i wasnt surprised my machine was compromised because i had been looking at porn all day then thanked him for his call.
I've just wasted my afternoon with a land bank scammer.
TBH I had never heard of sophisticated land bank scamming until today. Sure, I knew about the usual spiel concerning buying greenbelt land in the completely unrealistic hope that one day planning permission might be granted, but this was a more complex story in which the seller was keeping some of it for himself (and also a load of other detailed information).
I went with two other people to have a look at what was supposed to be a couple of building plots for sale in the centre of a village. It was only when we got there that it became apparent the plots were part of a large 6 acre field.
It was obvious straight away that the geezer was talking pie in the sky bollox, but I initially put it down to possibly piss-poor business acumen on his part, and listened patiently as he came out with all the sales patter concerning the great potential he believed this grassy field had.
Although as we walked away I made [i]"it's a scam"[/i] comment, it was only when I got home and did some googling, that I realised it had been a completely classic "land bank scam". I wish now that I had been fully aware at the time, as I could at least have amused myself by asking him a load of totally inane questions whilst feigning over enthusiasm.......still never mind 😐
I had one on the phone just before Christmas.
He go to to "go and duck off".
Just had one of these people on the phone. She couldn't even spell out the website correctly and put the phone down really quick when I told her she was trying to scam me!
Unfortunatly they got my MIL with one of these scams. They got lucky in that her computer had gone wrong and she'd phoned Comet about taking it back. About 6 hours later she got a phone call from the IT "specialists". She asked if they were from Comet and, naturally, they said "yes". Got £80 off her.
Got £80 off her.
I assume she then just rang her credit card company and reported the fraud and got them to do a chargeback then?
He hung up fairly quickly when I questioned why my macbook would be logging faults with microsoft but not before he tried to convince me that mac OS is mearly a skin for windows and that macbooks are actually made by microsoft!!!!!
Have you never heard of that Nigerian mega corp called MacroSoft?
I had one jsut after I moved into a new house, whilst I still had my PC at the old house (working internet still on).
They seemed a bit confused when they asked me to turn on my PC and I told them it would take about 20 mins by the time I walked round to the old house to turn it on and came back!
another one has phoned.
hes on the line now
Tell him the babies in the bath, make some splashing noises and see how long before he hangs up. Thats my favourite trick.
Only 12 minutes this time.
This one was completely gormless and impossible to sidetrack, he just stuck to his script.
We did the eventvwr thing again.
I played along with the logmein123 thing and bluffed him for as long as I could.
"The technician will be able to help you fix the errors on your computer"
"Will he be able to see everything on my computer ?"
"Yes, he will be able to see all the errors"
"Oh, it's just that I've got some photos on my computer I'd rather not let other people see"
That's as far as I got before he sussed me.
Normally, if it's cold call sales, I find out what they're selling, then say "You'd best speak to my dad about this".
I then turn away from the phone and shout to an empty room "Dad, there's someone on the phone about the kitchen/gutters/burglar alarm" and put the phone down without hanging up.
With the ones who are trying to access my computer, it's worth spinning them along a bit.
I enjoy telling the ones who are doing something water related that we have a well, telephone ones that we are still on baked bean tins and string and electricity ones that we have a tribe of hamsters and a lot of wheels that generate my power.
The calls never last long
We had a phone company one and I told the blokey that we didn't have a telephone. He hung up...
I like to just chat away normally and then suddenly explode into a torrent of abuse. Very stress relieving. Or overly enthusiastic always throws them. You're clearly taking the piss......or are you?!
I guess some of you will have heard this before, but for those that haven't... a classic way of dealing with unwanted phone calls...