Thursday 10 March 2011

Phone scams

Yesterday, when I went to shut down the computer, there was one of those little thingies superimposed on the "off" logo (somehow the correct word has slipped right out of my mind) which means Bill Gates's boys want to send me a load of guff before switching my computer off. I wouldn't mind, but it always means my computer taking longer than usual to boot up the next time I want it - like this morning - and, believe me, usual is too long! Maybe I should take advantage of the next phone call I get telling me that there is a problem with my computer. These calls come at the rate of about one a week - the last one was on Tuesday - and purport to originate from a company (I've never caught the name) employed by Microsoft's technical department. The caller tells me that they have identified a problem with my computer and suggest I switch it on so they can rectify the matter. I'm getting quite fed up with these calls. They are quite obviously a scam of some kind and I suppose some people must fall for them or the people involved wouldn't keep making them. I have been contemplating having a bit of fun the next time such a call comes through. There are a number of possibilities that come to mind.

I could try something along the lines of, 'You sound a nice person. Will you be my friend? I need a friend and you sound just the sort of person who would make a very good friend.' That would likely get the phone put down pretty quickly but I could string it out for quite a while given the opportunity. (The Old Bat thinks it would likely get me arrested or something but I doubt it.)

Or I could try this. 'Sorry, what did you say your name was? Deborah? That's a very nice/unusual name. Why did your parents call you that? Was that a film star your mother/father had a crush on?' etc etc. Again, that should result in the phone being replaced in a rush.

Part of the trouble with these phone calls is that nobody makes a note of numbers not to call because of wierdo's like me who answer. It should be relatively easy to programme those numbers into the computer that generates the random calls - but nobody can be bothered. I'm pretty sure Jehovah's Witnesses have a system. We had them call quite frequently - until we acquired a large black dog. He was really very friendly and just wanted to greet callers with a slobbery kiss but when my teenage son answered the door hanging onto the dog's collar and saw JWs standing on the step, he didn't disabuse them. They retreated rapidly and we had no more calling for several years.

Perhaps I should invent some sort of virtual dog to send down the phone line to those scam callers. Or maybe I'll just keep saying, 'I know this is a scam and I'm not falling for it' before replacing my phone.

8 comments:

The Broad said...

This post reminds me of several diffent conversations with The Man. Let's begin with your computer being slow: He moaned and groaned and I said he should get a new one with Windows 7 (Which I did a year ago)and he was considering this. The biggest bug-bear was he couldn't get on the Internet if I was, or if I got on he would get bumped off. For some reason last week he clicked on something and a box popped up saying 'do you want to delete your recycle bin?' He clicked 'ok' and it got cleared after about 30 minutes!!! Since then his boot up time, and everything else has speeded up to the level of 'nothings wrong'. So have you emptied your recycle bin lately?

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

This might be something you would want to consider?

Brighton Pensioner said...

I'm slightly reluctant to empty my recycle bin as I occasionally find I need to resurrect one of the files I have deleted but I really should try to do a bit of housekeeping. I have far to many photos that I don't want - and never will - taking up space. maybe after I've deleted some of them I'll take a look at the recycle bin.

Skip - that's the one! I was trying to remember where I had heard it. Next time the phone rings...

The Broad said...

Now, look, The Man says, "Grasp the nettle, and dump the lot!" This is the person, by the way, who still insists of using the old floppy disks to save all his letters and papers on. -- this is what you should do -- possibly you have a CD ROM drive you can copy these files onto. Or better still use one of those nifty little pen drives you insert into your USB port. When you have copied these files, dump, dump, dump -- you will think you have a new computer. Especially, if you have never emptied it -- which I may wrongly be assuming you have not done.

The Broad said...

Uncle Skip, that is funny! Many thanks for the link.

Brighton Pensioner said...

Good grief, woman! You're nagging worse than the Old Bat. ;->

I've bitten the bullet and done it. Not sure it's really made much difference though.

The Broad said...

I am laughing because as I posted my last comment I thought "He's gonna tell me to stop nagging him!" My only regret is it doesn't seem to have worked!

Brighton Pensioner said...

Well, the nagging worked. The jury's still out on the recycle bin emptying.