I know that some of you guys like doing this :-(
I placed a "wanted" ad on gumtree on the off-chance that I might get sensible replies, but all I have received is "Western Union" scams.
Any ideas how I could string these people along, at little effort to myself?
tim
I had some fun earlier today, when someone called to "fix my computer". Kept them going for 16 minutes, and they eventually hung up on me.
First, this far eastern sounding girl from Microsoft support (unlikely) tells me they can tell that my computer has got some problem software on it which they need to fix. Am I in front of my computer now? - Yes. Can I close everything? - Yes (well, I didn't actually bother to do so, but I said yes). Now can I hold down the flying-windows key and press R. (Actually, she had to repeat that lots of times because I genuinely couldn't make out what she was asking me to do.) So I do this. "What happened," she asked? Nothing, I said. She gets me to do this several more times, but still nothing happens. "Just a moment, I'll get my supervisor."
I thought that was going to be an excuse to cut me off, but no, I can hear her calling someone, and eventually a bloke with a similar far eastern sounding accent comes on the line. We go through the whole flying-windows-R thing again several more times, but it still doesn't do anything. Then he gets me to go to
At this point he says my PC needs to be rebooted, but I'm afraid I declined to do this as I have work in progress on it. Then he hangs up.
Strangely, at no point did they ask what's running on my PC, and I suspect they made a false assumption that it has Windows on it.
So that I'm better prepared for next time, I think I'll create a cloned sand-boxed Windows VM...
Yes, the whole thing would be wittier in my case as I use a Mac.
I use BSD, and my keyboard was 20 years old last month. It doesn't *have* a 'flying windows' key!
But then the Asterisk box would probably deter them anyway.
Or if you had a newer keyboard and some stickets, "is that anywhere near the Puffy button?"
Owain
They called whilst I was gardening the other day. After a period of pointless chat, I asked what it was they were trying to achieve, because I had no computer problems.
They guy then told me that, if we worked together, he could improve my quality of life. Somewhat surprised, I suggested that was a big claim, but he was confident.
I said I was sitting in my garden in the sunshine, enjoying my retirement, whilst he was slaving away in a call centre trying to meet his target for getting leads. Who had the better quality of life?
Click.
Chris
Heh, that was my thought too upon reading the previous post - I wonder what their script is for people who are using keyboard without silly windows keys? I suspect it's possible to string them along for a few minutes trying to simply explain to you where the key that they want you to press is...
I suppose it works even better if they only ever say 'windows' rather than MS-windows.
(My keyboard turns 25 in three months time)
cheers
Jules
And even if you do have a "flying Windows" key, going by the knowledge level of the people that I help in my volunteering session, I bet an awful lot of people don't know which key they are referring to. It's anything but obvious.
tim
Please report these to the police.
You may think it is fun, but think of the poor computer illiterates, who get conned. At the least, they might then be a source of SPAM. At the worst someone might get all their bank details and passwords.
I've been told that a number of these firms have have telephone lines blocked
Jim
In which country? And for doing what? and who are "these"?
Generally they are after billing their cc for "foxing the problem with their computer".
They don't use phone lines - that's one of the things that makes it more difficult. VoIP "lines" are well under 10 a penny.
Oh well.
I gave up on the idea of stringing them along and just reported them to Gumtree
I got a nice "thank you" mail back telling me that they had taken steps to make sure that the poster couldn't reply to Gumtree ads in the future.
I hope that this means they have banned his IP address rather than his email (which would be pointless).
tim
Banning IPs is relatively pointless - many ISPs issue dynamic IPs to broadband customers these days.
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