I’m busy, so I shouldn’t be writing this, but it’s so funny I can’t avoid it.
I got a call about an hour ago. The caller ID said “Unknown Name, Unknown Number.” Background noise of a busy call center, so I’m thinking a survey or a telemarketer. A survey I’ll just politely decline to take. But if I’m bored and feeling nasty, and a telemarketer doesn’t immediately take no for an answer, I’ll play along with him to waste his time, drive up the costs, and keep him occupied so he can annoy fewer other people (you’re welcome). And if I’m lucky, it’ll be a really pushy one, and I can indulge in some profanity, which I normally avoid. Loud profanity. Very cathartic, I highly recommend it.
As I was bored and feeling nasty, I really hoped it was an annoying telemarketer.
I’m taking mental bets for and against that, while simultaneously repeating “hello?” several times, when a guy with a very thick accent (from India, I think) came on. I could barely understand him, but eventually he got across that my computer was infected, and they were calling to fix it.
It’s not often you can bet all sides of an issue with yourself and still lose. I’ve hit the jackpot — this is no mere telemarketer, it’s a scam artist! (No one calls for that kind of thing. Not your ISP, not Microsoft, and not some third-party company. Period.) I decided to play along and see where it would lead.
He walked me through finding the Windows key, then calling up the Run dialog. Then he had me type “eve”, but after that I couldn’t understand what he was saying, so he passed me to a second person (also with a thick Indian accent, but more understandable). He had me erase that and spelled out “eventvwr” for me, and it was ridiculously funny how hard it was for them to even get that far. That’s safe enough to run, so I kept playing.
He had me look in the Application and System logs for any errors or warnings, and tried to have me read him something from one — I think it must have been the event code, but I couldn’t understand his repeated instructions, so he decided to move on to the next line of the script, and said that they meant there was a virus in my computer.
After a long spiel, most of which I couldn’t understand, he told me that one of their technicians would log into my computer and fix it.
Uh-uh. Only a very select group of people are allowed into my computers, and only via heavily secured channels. If I’d known these guys were going to call, I’d have set up a honeypot system for them to waste their time on, but I was using one of my development systems. No way I was letting anyone in there.
“No,” I said, “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” he asked. This was a third person, who had taken over the call while I was going through the Event Viewer window.
“Because you’re a scammer.”
“Why you say I’m a scammer?” He doesn’t sound shocked or affronted. I guess he’s still hoping to salvage something from the call.
“Because,” I said with malicious sweetness, and still in a reasonable tone, “nobody calls about this kind of thing, you fucktard.”
“You are an idiot. How much you know about computers?” Still no real emotion in his voice, he sounds bored if anything, but he starts talking a little faster. I have a very strong mental image of him sitting back in a swivel chair and crossing his legs while fidgeting with a toothpick, a look of disgust and disdain on his face. I’m not sure why.
“I’m a software developer. I know exactly what goes on in them. I’m also an electronics technician. I can build one. From chips and blank circuit boards, if necessary.”
“You know nothing.”
Oh, this was getting funny! I’ve produced my credentials — legitimate ones too, I am a software developer, I did work as an electronics technician for many years, and I really have traced and etched my own circuit boards from blanks and built a (really, really simple) computer from them — and he’s trying to claim that compared to him, I know nothing?!?!
“You are an asshole. You are an idiot,” he continues. “Are you an asshole?”
“To people like you, yes I am.” Still maliciously sweet and reasonable.
We traded insults back and forth a few more times, me getting more amused and him getting more angry and frustrated, until he realized that insulting me wasn’t getting him anywhere either. Then he hung up.
Man, I really wish I could have recorded it. It was very cathartic. And I didn’t even raise my voice once. Any telemarketers who call today are going to get a very polite and contented person, even the pushy ones.
Google pointed me to a British article on this exact scam from the middle of last year. According to the article, I should expect the scammers to flood this entry with broken-English “testimonials” claiming that they fixed some problem for the comment author. I might even leave them up to be mocked.
This kind of thing isn’t so funny for people like my sister-in-law, who might be taken in by the ploy, though. If I could figure out a way to stop it, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Wow. I’ve never heard of something like this before. That’s so wrong on so many levels. I could definitely have some fun with them as you did, wasting their time, but it does make me concerned for others I know who wouldn’t know it’s a scam.
Apparently my warnings came too late for many. At GoddessJ’s Optimist Christmas party last night (yeah, way late — you can thank the Snow Gods for that), I found that several of the members had already been hit by it, as much as a month ago. Fortunately the two that I talked to directly were smart enough not to fall for it.
One of the benefits of having only a mobile phone and no land-line is that you get a lot less unsolicited phone calls, because it’s illegal, in the US, but not in certain other countries, to get an unsolicited phone call on a mobile phone, and after a certain U.S. Senator (Schumer) got one on his mobile phone during an important meeting, they really started cracking down on the few who still were doing it.
This call was from India. US laws aren’t applicable there. Not that these guys care about laws anyway.
I’ve only gotten one unsolicited phone call on my mobile phone since I got one, and it was, you guessed it, a scammer. (“Auto insurance expired” scam, which is funny, because I have no car.)