Pissing off scammers
So I was just called up by a man with a heavy Indian accent claiming that my computer was “infected with hackers.” It’s currently 9 in the morning at my location, and normally, I wouldn’t be up this early, so I would be groggy and absent-minded on any other day, had it not been for my cat getting me out of bed and The Necronomicon chanting seductively at me from across the room. So luckily, having read two short stories to get my brain thrumming, I was rather sharp when these yahoos called me up. I didn’t catch on immediately because I’m the kinda person who gives everything the benefit of a doubt, but it became apparent quite quickly that something was off.
1: a man with a heavy indian accent speaking English called a DANISH person at an odd hour, giving nonspecific claims in broken English that my computer was jeapordized.
2: The man very quickly lost his temper when I took a while following his instructions - I was actually looking up info on recent scam-calls on my ipad and drawing it out by relaying to him how “my computer is old, it takes time to boot.”
Now, the moment this man lost his temper and started trying to threaten me with fear-tactics, I knew this was a scam, so here’s the how-to-spot-a-scammer-ABC:
A: NEVER trust anyone who won’t specify what the problem with your machine is.
B: NEVER give in to fear tactics such as “your computer will be blocked in two hours if you do no do this-and-that”
C: ALWAYS remember that major companies do not call outside of regular work-hours, won’t place unsolicited calls and certainly won’t hire people who are intentionally vague about your problem and right off the bat are trying to get you to press things on your keyboard before even explaining what the specific problem is.
If any of these conditions are met, HANG UP IMMEDIATELY. I didn’t, because I didn’t know this last step. Instead, I annoyed the piss out of him.
“Ma’am, if you do not do this, your computer will be blocked in two hours!!”
“I guess I’ll be calling Microsoft in two hours, then.”
“Ma’am, your - your machine is going to be shut down, is that what you - tell me, what do you want?!”
“Well, I want. To not. Be scammed.”
He promptly hung up.
And in case any other Dane out there is reading this, the number they called from was +45 36 99 02 92
