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I'd love to get one of these calls, but I always let it go to the answer machine if the number is withheld or if I don't recognise it. 
Hi I'm from Windows....
- Thread starter Jay794
- Start date
I love these guys, my gf's Father has had a couple of these calls, and knowing that its complete rubbish he plays along for a while until he gets to a point where they ask him to click on the Start icon, at which point he says he is on Mac.
To top that off, the second time he did it he demanded they stay on the phone because this virus must be the thing stopping him access all of the pornography on the internet and they must help him so he can go back to watching it again because he needs to watch it!
To top that off, the second time he did it he demanded they stay on the phone because this virus must be the thing stopping him access all of the pornography on the internet and they must help him so he can go back to watching it again because he needs to watch it!
Saw that you said that we'd love this then the chat log was so short. Disappointed
I'll have to record the call next time then post up the MP3 or something
My parents were scammed by this a couple of weeks ago. Took 182GBP off their credit card an heavily infected their computer. Luckily a friend sorted them out for me. But they will never see that 80 quid again.
That is irrelevant. My parents know lots of people that work professionally with computer (I have a PhD in computer science, , my brother in law is an expert in computer security and networking who was head-hunted my MS with an offer to name his price).
The scam artist call up my mum one evening, she sees through the scam and puts the phone down.
Next week they call, my mum is out and my dad answers. 2 minutes later he is downloading their software which gives remote access, all firewalls and AVs are uninstalled, and 181GBP has been taken from his credit card.
for the first hours he was swearing that it was officially Microsoft and that they will be lucky not to get sued for not dealing with the virus. Took some convincing that it was a fraud.
My dad is not stupid, he has a Masters from Cambridge, a PhD and was a well respected and well published lecturer most of his life. he just deosn't have a clue about modern computers.
The last time he did anything remotely technical with a computer involved punching holes in cards and posting the cards to a different university who actually owned a computer and awaiting for the mail man to send back the cards where he would fine program had a bug. Back then a virus was something like the flu and you would spend a week in bed, it wasn't possible for the cardboard punch cards to transmit things between computers, only people!
Inexcusable?
Some 40-50 year old non computer-savvy person isn't going to say 'Hold up, I need to quickly give my computer-literate friend a call about this. Just stay on the line..' are they?
Be abit more realistic...
You say you're dad is not stupid, and I don't mean to be insulting, but would a better not be "my son deals with all the computers in the house, so no thanks"
Some 40-50 year old non computer-savvy person should say "I know someone who knows about computers, so no thanks"
They might as well phone up Fonejacker style and say "Goooooood afternoon Sir, We have been told by our security that there's a pigeon in the bank vault, we are going to be needing your sort code and account number to remove it"
Inexcusable?
Some 40-50 year old non computer-savvy person isn't going to say 'Hold up, I need to quickly give my computer-literate friend a call about this. Just stay on the line..' are they?
Be abit more realistic...
Some 40-50 year old non computer-savvy person should say "I know someone who knows about computers, so no thanks"
They might as well phone up Fonejacker style and say "Goooooood afternoon Sir, We have been told by our security that there's a pigeon in the bank vault, we are going to be needing your sort code and account number to remove it"
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But that is the point. Unless someone lives in the house that is computer literate then it is meaningless that older computer illiterate people have knowledgeable friends.
When my parents complained officially to some government (maybe ofted?)watchdog group they were told that at least tens of thousands of other people have been scammed in the same way and it is being investigated as a priority for them since it is so prevalent.
A week after my parents were scammed they met an elderly friend in town who was also recently scammed the same way (my parents live in a small town of a few thousand people). Then a few days ago my mum was chatting with another friend down in London talking about the ordeal and as my mum explained some details this friend suddenly realized that she did the exact same thing about a year ago and didn't even realised it was a scam.
You got to realize that anyone who is reading this forum is already in the top 0.1% of computer literate people on the planet.
Heh, heh.
I have had so many of these phone calls. If I have the time, rather than telling them to go 'clean windows' before putting down the receiver, I start to go into my own little spiel which might go along the lines of something like:
“This is Beecham Funeral Services, did you want to make a reservation?”
or
“Which department were you wanting or would you prefer me to connect you to Sergeant Trap at the desk?”
It gives me a chuckle and sometimes I might keep them on the phone for ages, just because it feels so right
I have had so many of these phone calls. If I have the time, rather than telling them to go 'clean windows' before putting down the receiver, I start to go into my own little spiel which might go along the lines of something like:
“This is Beecham Funeral Services, did you want to make a reservation?”
or
“Which department were you wanting or would you prefer me to connect you to Sergeant Trap at the desk?”
It gives me a chuckle and sometimes I might keep them on the phone for ages, just because it feels so right
I think I am in the lowest 1% because I know nothing about pcs' really, but I do know a scam and these scammers need to be sorted. I would have told these good people to take it to somewhere high profile like Watchdog on television, they would collect evidence and possibly help.