'Hi, I'm from Microsoft and I am GOING TO KILL YOU'

They hit here in Portugal last week!

Called me and I told "her" where to go!

Next day, they called a local retired German client of mine, who doesn't speak that good English, and spent 20 minutes on the phone being instructed on how to download teamviewer and activate it BEFORE teling the spammer that the machine was a MacBook Air!!!!! ;)))))

Still gave it a once over though.

It had to come

If they start making threats about your life then it is time to get the police involved.

I get these sort of calls at least once a week.

They could be

- We are from Microsoft Support

- About that accident you had in the last 2 years

- etc etc

They all get short shift with a two word reply ending in "Off".

My Mother got one last week. She does not even have a computer (Well, she is 96). But she has been briefed by me.

Because she is hard of hearing, she records all her calls just so that she can listen to them again in case they have number and the like that she needs to write down. I listened to her give the guy the brush off telling him about how she flew bombers in WW2 (Delivering planes to squadons) and that she din't fight the Germans just so that he could try to scam her. Wonderful Stuff.

I've had these calls

I live in Canada, and I've had these calls. I once kept the guy on the line for a while pretending to follow his instructions and telling him it wasn't working. He finally asked me what version of Windows I had, and I said I had Linux. He didn't believe me and kept insisting that I had either Windows or Apple. Eventually, he hung up.

I do have to say though that scummy American robo-caller companies ("press 1 to lower your interest rate") are worse than the Indian Microsoft scammers when it comes to persistence and being annoying. They're probably both equally crooked. I'm not sure though which one has the more incomprehensible accent.

$deity

There was a scammer who threatened me with the wrath of "god" for scorning his sales pitch.

I am from a technical support desk in the UK...

...and we would like to hire such an enterprising individual. I'm sure our statistics would improve rapidly with half of our user base being deceased.

*joke, of course*

Amiga 1000

If I have the time to waste, i like to take them through all the hoops of getting my puter ready.

Rebooting, inserting kickstart-disk, trying to be helpful in the process of installing their programs om Workbench 1.2 etc...

I managed to get some pretty nasty reactions in the end too =)

"You're very rude sir, very rude!"

And that's were i like to get into details about my date last night with their mum.

I had loads of fun with one of those calls recently from a guy who apparently worked for "the Windows company". I sounded worried and asked him which device was the one with the problem, which confused him a bit. I said that if he could tell me what version of Windows was causing the problem I would know which computer was having difficulties as I have more than 1 windows machine in the house.

He got quite irritated with me when I explained I couldn't let him have access to the right computer until I knew which one it was, and telling me what operating system it was using would let me do that. He kept telling me it was the "Windows" one. I got bored after around 20 minutes of talking in circles and tying him in knots, & told him where to go.

They also call my neighbour quite often - she's well into her 70's and slightly deaf, and still gets her daughter to use the cash machine for her and has never had a computer in the house...

Used to hate getting these calls

Now I just speak softly and quietly so they are forced to turn the volume up on their headset, once that's done I let off my wife's attack alarm off down the phone, funny you can still hear the screams from the caller above the screeching of the alarm.

Not my tactic but I have used it......

Call centre "Hello I'm from Microsoft and we've detected a problem on your PC...."

Me (Loudly" "Sweet Leaping Jesus, hallaluah, my pc HAS been faulty, can you fix it?"

Call Centre "Of course sir, please switch it on"

Me "Yes!!!!!! Can you see the screen, its now checking file system on C:. 1%....................2%.........................3% ou stilll there?.......... 4% ...........

Never got to 10%, or had my pc fixed :(

Problem with my windows

The last one I had told me they had detected a problem with my windows.

I tried to tell him that my widows were all working fine. They were double glazed, they all opened and closed really nicely and were really sparkling as I'd just had them cleaned.

He seemed to get very irate at this point so I started laughing to try and lighten the mood. Unfortunately this only seemed to make him more upset and he hung up.

Just waiting

...for the chance to convince them I have used DEL - the Device Exception Log and can't see any problem.

the DEL being, of course that built-in Microsoft tool that a lot of cheap antivirus vendors use and just sell you a GUI.

Oh yes, it's actually very good, just not ever so user friendly. You (dear caller) should give it a try:

Get 'em to run CMD then type "DEL c:\Windows *.*" hit Return and wait for the DEL report.

Nearly made it once but the guy was a poor English speaker and in the end got pissed off getting me to explain umpteen times and hung up.

The last one of these I had I successfully kept him on the phone for 15 minutes while I wandered round the house playing along. - a new personal record I was on overtime rates at the time so I had time to kill... He even rang me back twice to swear at me after he realised I was playing him and I'd hung up laughing at him.

Record here is 45 minutes keeping them on the line. Got as far as "installing" their remote assistance software, but somehow the connection ID I read out to them never seemed to work. Got the initial caller's supervisor involved too, which is always worthwhile. One female caller eventually ended by telling me to "sleep with" my mother, which I expressed mild surprise about: I asked if that sort of thing was common where she came from.

The current most-common phone call is someone with an Indian accent who starts by asking me to confirm my address and postcode. I just tell them that the one they've read out to me is wrong. They then ask for the correct address and postcode and I just refuse to tell them which doesn't seem to be an option in their script and we get stuck. I'm considering getting them to change the address and postcode to something slightly plausible but completely wrong, just to poison their database.

Bear in mind...

Bear in mind that the guys calling might be victims themselves - and maybe working for people who are not very nice. And surely it's a symptom of poverty that this is one of the 'work' options available.

We (wife and I) do a polite 'Sorry, we have no computers here' and a second or two later the call usually drops.

This has been a modest winner:

I have had a couple of these, as well as similar scam calls, and I always start 'Yes, I'd be glad of your assistance, but first I'd like to talk with you about my personal Saviour, Jesus.' So far I have never been speaking to a devoted Christian, so have not offended. If they don't hang up immediately, I can go on witnessing to my personal faith for an amazing length of time. At the end, I feel cleansed and renewed, so it's all good.

(I am a non-believer, so I can sound uber-sincere with an untroubled conscience.)

I've never had one.

Been waiting for years but never got it.

What I will do when it finally happens is give my name as Mr Cameron, then ask them to call me back on my landline. I will then give the phone number for Downing Street.

Hopefully it'll eventually get annoying for whoever mans the phones there, and MI6 will sort it all out once and for all.

Use a counter script

Great ideas here, I can't wait trying out the transfer game. In the meantime, here is a counter script which is around for ages: http://egbg.home.xs4all.nl/english/counterscript.pdf

The guy from India must really be stupid. Can't he tell that the Canadian guy knows his stuff.

Scammer, thief, "bad person", uttering death threats, .....

Getting closer...

I live in Switzerland and I have had 3 of these in English!! On the last call, I asked the guy if this is the job he always dreamed of. If, when he wakes up in the morning, does he feel that he has achieved all he wanted in life, and if not, I work for a large company who employ many many people in India and doesn't he want a real job? Almost got him to send me his CV, and once one of them does, maybe we can get El Reg to post the (probably fake) CV of a scammer... :)

Anyone else up for the challenge?

Lucky fellas!

All I ever get (quite frequently, mind) are automated calls with standard waffle from tape.

Otherwise it would be my pleasure to waste their time for a bit so that they mark me as a hopeless timewaster in their database and leave me alone.

Nothing you can do about those freaking tapes though!

I think that every time anyone gets one of these call they should send a small donation to the Pakistani embassy with a note saying that it's to put towards their nuclear weapons program...

People like this...

...should spend the next 30 years in the slammer.

Do your bit!

I'm very surprised there aren't more comments about how long people have managed to string them along. I feel it is my duty as part of the IT industry to do my bit to stop these criminal leaches. Come on lads! See how long you can string them along.

I managed just under an hour once and 25 minutes the second time before they gave up.

I told them the computer was upstairs and not turned so I could keep them on hold for four or five minutes each time I turned it on, opened a menu etc.

Scammer persuaded to jack in the job:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2874365/Mother-takes-cold-call-crook-tries-scam-phone-instead-convinces-criminal-lifestyle.html

Bah!

"... and dump them in the river!"

(my instant imagined response)

"And three months later you have to fish them out of your office when the monsoon comes and the river floods you out. Bit of an own-goal if you ask me."

"spent 20 minutes on the phone being instructed on how to download teamviewer and activate it BEFORE teling the spammer that the machine was a MacBook Air!!!!! ;)))))"

That's what I did too! You know, even if I had been using Windows they were using the wrong terminology sometimes. But they wanted me to install TeamViewer. I said I was unpacking the archive and they were like "Huh?" but went along with it. When it got to where I was going to read them some number, then I was like "Oh I forgot I'm not even running Windows, I'm running Ubuntu Linux. Bye." They called right back but I ignored them. I tied them up about 20 minutes.

They called some other time and I strung them several minutes "Oh that's funny that you'd find problems "with my Windows" because I keep Windows the hell off my computers, I'm running Linux." 8-) They tried to say I must be mistaken and I had to point out "I think I know what software my computers are running." 8-)

The worst are the one I call "card fucker" though. This is "Rachel from Account Services" and associated scammers. The fuckers called 6 times yesterday before I even woke up! I have filed over 284 FCC complaints against them for violating the Do Not Call list, illegal robocalls, and line seizure (they sometimes call twice or 3 times in a row, so if I tried to make an emergency outgoing call they'd have the line tied up.) US law allows me to personally collect fines for each incident (probably most people can't because they don't bother to file complaints.) When the Do Not Call laws were passed they realized the FCC and FTC would not be able or willing to collect all fines, thus the clause allowing private citizens to do it. These fines would come to $284,000 if I collect the minimum amount. (Once they are informed the calls are illegal, which I've done on record several times, I could collect double or triple.)

The simplest solution to this would be to start blacklisting the telcos that are providing them with gateway from VoIP to the PSTN.

I can assure you they'd be off the phones in a few hours once a few major US or Euro telcos had barred whatever Indian or other operators are passing that scam traffic.

Oh yes! I receive at least one call a week.

After spending 11 years in the Navy (US variety) as a Medical Officer I do have a vocabulary that would make the devil blush. My wife looks at me aghast when she hears me uncork. Then she cools right off when I tell her is was Bill Gates ill gotten spawn calling again.

"Can I have your Credit Card number please?"

Over the last month or two I've found that this results in an instant "click" and silence - these scammers seem to have been taught to give up with this reply.

I also use the same technique with many other callers, explaining this is a pay-for number and it seems to work reasonably well. Endless opportunity to wind-up persistent callers by telling them how much of a bill they have already run up etc.

Previously a discussion of the caller's sexual preferences and why they are calling me if not to arrange some homosexual liaison have proved amusing, but lasts far longer than I expected or had time for - persistent buggers they are!

And this is....

Why I haven't got a landline phone. To clarify I have a landline for broadband but no phone plugged in just because of this crap and that I don't get anywhere near the zillion free minutes and texts on my mobile contract.