I love those "your computer is infected" calls.

[Isaac]

Some company has been calling me, trying to get me to remove my viruses off my infected computer. Unfortunately, my computer is running Lubuntu 14.04 LTS, which they have no training on.

Lady goes, "Can you go to your 'NORMAL' screen?"

Obviously she means TTY1. I tell her, "ok, I'm there".

Then she goes into a lengthy description of where the CTRL and r key are and then asks, "Can you press CTRL+r?"

I use Fish as my interactive shell, so the CTRL in CTRL+r is ignored. Instead, the character r typed and the auto correct begins auto complete my last rm command, which leads to a file I deleted a long time ago.

She asks "what does it show?"


She pauses. I can sense the little gears in her head spinning at full capacity, trying to figure out how the computer could be showing me that. But being a smart little scammer, she determined it must be a URL, meaning I'm in the browser.

She gives me a domain name and I tell her, "command not found".

She interprets this as "page not found" and keeps repeating how the domain is spelt. Each time it says, "command not found".

After about 30 minutes of wasting time she just hangs up on me. I guess she didn't want to rescue me from the viruses.

The funny part is, she wasn't calling my actual phone number. She was calling my google voice number, which is like a proxy number to my real phones. I've marked the number as spam. They can call back all they want.

[Lothar]

My dad loves pranking the scammers. He started as a software engineer in 1972, and still owns a TRS-80 Model 1. But he pretends like he's clueless and kind of senile. "Open my windows? Yes, I'm sitting near a window. There's a fan in my window. Do you like fans?" He'll often keep them on for 20-30 minutes just running in circles, while he's actually busy doing stuff on the computer the whole time.

[Foil]

Oh, I love those. I have multiple Windows boxes, so if I have time, I'll keep them talking for a few minutes by playing confused/skeptical about which machine they're referring to (the usual reply is, "well, any of them", at which point I can play the baffled, "you mean it's all my machines?!").

From there, it's pretty much what you did, just giving them a little at a time, so they think they're walking you through their script. I get these calls at least once every week or two, so I can do it while walking through the grocery store.

...On the other hand, one time I was home with some time to kill during one of these calls, and I managed to get "escalated" a couple of levels to one of their knowledgeable techs. He figured out pretty quickly what I was doing, so I got him into a conversation about his skills. Turned out the guy had a really solid tech education and background, but felt that this job was the only good job available to him. I tried to encourage him to look for something legit... not sure if he ever did.

[Top Gun]

Can't say I've ever received one of those calls, or even heard of them. Maybe I've just been lucky.

[Isaac]

I'm a small business owner. If you ever go into business for yourself, don't give out your phone number. Also, if you ever have to put your number on job applications, also use a proxy. Those bastards give away your number to dozens of phone spammers

[sigma]

Looks like I'm a happy man. On my phones not once in my life, never, no one called to me about problems with my computer. I am most infuriates advertising on the Internet. Only once enter a search query about buying a new bike, so then everywhere, on all Russian and foreign pages, you will see the damn banners advertising the bikes! I bought it a long time ago!!! Although after search requests for "naked chicks" then banner ads with naked chicks do not appear!

[Avder]

What I like to do is just play the confused technonewbie who is suddenly so scared that his computer could be screwed up.

I just love leading them on. Sometimes you can quite literally hear their excitement building as they try to get me to visit some malware site, or get me to give them remote access, or just plain get me to buy fake something or other.

Then just when they think they're about to make their payday, which is usually a good 30-40 minutes into the call, I whip out the ol' Debit Card from the Bank of Go ★■◆● Yourself with a balance of Zero Fucks To Give and just see how much I can cuss them out before they hang up. The record is two minutes. That poor idiot was trying to save it for a whole 90 seconds before he finally just shut up and took his well earned profanity and finally hung up.

But I will jerk them around as long as I possibly can. It's their dime, and I intend to make it as big of a dime as I can. Sometimes it's hard to keep from breaking out into laughs at how stupid they are.

One time I actually faked it like I really did have a malware problem on my computer and tried to get the idiot on the line to actually walk my character through it. I have never overacted and hammed it up that much before or since. Pretended I had a proposal for a million dollar account in a file that had been ransomwared. Was flying off the handle so much they actually tried to walk me through an improvised calming down exercise.

[Isaac]

Looks like I'm a happy man.

You're always happy. You're always drinking the happy.

not once in my life, never, no one called to me about problems with my computer.

If they not once, never, not called you, they better stop!

I am most infuriates advertising on the Internet. Only once enter a search query about buying a new bike, so then everywhere, on all Russian and foreign pages, you will see the damn banners advertising the bikes! I bought it a long time ago!!!

Exactly. I bought a cookie jar shaped like Vladimir Putin's head, so that when someone gets accused of steeling a cookie, they can respond by saying they never invaded the cookie jar; just because we're standing next to the cookie jar and have cookie crumbs on our face does not mean we invaded the cookie jar. This is American propaganda to place sanctions on our allowance money.

Now I see Vladimir Putin's head everywhere in ads.

Although after search requests for "naked chicks" then banner ads with naked chicks do not appear!

It's all the snowman rape porn you search that throws it off.

[sigma]

I never get drunk! Just sometimes I can be a good mood!

[Isaac]

If I go to Russia, you, me, my cookie jar of Vladimir Putin's head can get wasted in front of the Kremlin.

[sigma]

Why only in front of the Kremlin? You can write a letter to Vladimir Putin about your desire to meet with him directly in the Kremlin. Even completely blue Elton John has received a positive response about the possibility of meeting with Putin in Moscow. Wish you luck! http://eng.letters.kremlin.ru/

[Sergeant Thorne]

Isaac, I looked for the "like" button next to your post propaganda, but I couldn't find it!

[sigma]

Yes, Isaac sharp-tongued. It is unclear why he still has not guessed to answer those "your computer is infected" calls, in his style "I'm not interested in your services, but if we go to Russia, you, me, my cookie jar of Vladimir Putin's head can get wasted in front of the Kremlin!"

[Tunnelcat]

Anyone here who hasn't gotten one of these is either lucky, or has a phone number these jerk's autodialers haven't hit on yet. I have caller ID announce, so I just pick up and hang up on every unknown, private or number I don't recognize. I Googled a couple of the numbers to see what they were out of curiosity. Most were the old computer virus scam that many forums on line griped about whenever I searched on a particular number. By the way, there are multiple numbers these crooks rotate through. What I really hate is when these bastards call after 10:30PM and screw up my sleep for hours afterwards. If I could instantly teleport to their little scam shops, I'd not hesitate to throttle them all, then set fire to the place for good measure.

[Ferno]

I think I scare these people too much. I haven't had one phone call from any of these scammers.

but I SO WANT to talk to them! I really, REALLY want to have some fun with these turd-burgulars. I want to be the guy who they warn their coworkers, boss and friends about.

[Tunnelcat]

I'm amazed they haven't harassed you in revenge Ferno. After all, they do know your phone number. Think nasty or hangup calls late at night when you're trying to sleep. You must be putting the fear of God in them or something.

[snoopy]

I haven't had any of them yet.... I fairly regularly get these machine calls that start with "This is not a marketing call...." once I listened long enough to figure out that they had lied. Since then, I promptly just hang up.

[sigma]

tunnelcat, actually, the phone not only has an answering machine, but also a function off the volume of incoming calls, for example, at night.

[Krom]

I've never gotten one of these calls either. Probably because I never give out a real phone number (well, actually it was real at one time, but we disconnected that line over 10 years ago).

Although I bet it would be pretty amusing of I did, I could probably burn up a boatload of their time just quoting stuff I've heard other people say. Or if I had some time to search the web, I could probably send them a "screen capture" of what I was looking at that would have way more than just an image payload.

[Tunnelcat]

You're devious Krom.