The 30 Second "Tech Support from Microsoft" call.

kevinmorris · 2018-03-14T21:04:58.000Z

A couple of days ago I was standing in the hallway, outside of one of our ‘overflow’ storage closets, when my cell phone rings. I look at the number and the phone is reporting ‘Michigan’, no city or company just the state name. Normally I ignore strange calls that list only a state as they are almost always scam or robo calls. I decide to answer it and immediately Jackie from Microsoft starts her spiel. The first question is, of course, “Are you in front of your computer?”

I told her no, but I have about 200 different desktops and laptops to choose from, was going to add ‘not including servers, tablets, and iMacs’ but I heard the distinct click and silence as the connection was severed. Oh well, maybe that group got the point and has removed my number from their list of targets.

I will give ‘Jackie’ credit; although she still had a distinct accent from India, she was easy to understand and the accent wasn’t as thick as most.

jason7147 · 2018-03-14T21:25:55.000Z

She gave up pretty easily.

jimender2 · 2018-03-14T21:41:15.000Z

Good idea. Next time I will do this. Better than saying “Should I close my blinds too?”

stu-tmb · 2018-03-14T21:55:37.000Z

Kevin462:

I told her no, but I have about 200 different desktops and laptops to choose from,

And that’s the story of when Jackie realised it’s time to move onto an unsuspecting target…

I’ve had a few claiming to be from our largest telco down here in Oz saying that my PC was hacking their server - so I go into major panic/meltdown mode for a while until I get their ‘supervisor’ then say I don’t understand how it can happen because I don’t have a computer or internet…

‘Click’

samuelhunt · 2018-03-14T22:01:46.000Z

Romo:

She gave up pretty easily.

Second you realize you didn’t get a sucker on the line, go on to the next one. Quantity strategy.

I should start answering these calls at home and see how long I can mess with them by cracking open my linux VM.

chocolatemint · 2018-03-14T22:01:48.000Z

I always wanted to get that call and say, “no, but I can turn on my mac” It still works, but I don’t use it anymore. I suppose now I could say, “yes, my chromebook is on” and see where it goes from there…

Robert5205 · 2018-03-14T22:09:57.000Z

She’s got a ways to go to compete with Richard.

Microsoft support scam vs The Girlfriend Water Cooler

Got this series of text messages from my girlfriend, Carla. She's nobody's fool when it comes to scams. Thought some of you might enjoy another scammer story. "Richard" from the Windows Security Center just called and told me that my computer is downloading malicious and illegal stuff. He asked if I was in front of my computer and I said, "Yes." He asked me what I saw. I said, "Facebook." He asked me to minimize it. I said, "But I like Facebook." He said I need to minimize it. I said not…

curtisnewman · 2018-03-14T22:52:42.000Z

30 seconds IT related

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Back to the Future in 30 seconds with bunnies.

Angry Alien Productions specializes in cartoons, illustration and design services by Jennifer Shiman

johnminakais · 2018-03-14T22:58:59.000Z

Kevin462:

A couple of days ago I was standing in the hallway, outside of one of our ‘overflow’ storage closets, when my cell phone rings. I look at the number and the phone is reporting ‘Michigan’, no city or company just the state name. Normally I ignore strange calls that list only a state as they are almost always scam or robo calls. I decide to answer it and immediately Jackie from Microsoft starts her spiel. The first question is, of course, “Are you in front of your computer?”

I told her no, but I have about 200 different desktops and laptops to choose from, was going to add ‘not including servers, tablets, and iMacs’ but I heard the distinct click and silence as the connection was severed. Oh well, maybe that group got the point and has removed my number from their list of targets.

I will give ‘Jackie’ credit; although she still had a distinct accent from India, she was easy to understand and the accent wasn’t as thick as most.

It’s bad when the scammers speak better English then the real Microsoft reps… I’ve watched a few of those scam videos where people troll the scammers, its great. Granted i have not called Microsoft support in a few years so things may have changed, but i have to say, the majority of the scammers I’ve heard are much easier to understand then the guy or gal your trying to read serial number to, and then have to figure out what serial number they are giving you back.

aceofspades · 2018-03-15T00:51:18.000Z

Its because she’s from the SOHO team

kevinmorris · 2018-03-15T01:27:51.000Z

Shunt00213:

Romo:

She gave up pretty easily.

Second you realize you didn’t get a sucker on the line, go on to the next one. Quantity strategy.

I should start answering these calls at home and see how long I can mess with them by cracking open my linux VM.

For a good length of time. When I have a few minutes I enjoy watching the scam the scammer vids on YouTube. To mess with them even more, build a custom Linux vm customized to look just like a windows box.

neko-neko · 2018-03-15T05:48:33.000Z

Never had one call like that yet… gotta remember this response

riso9937 · 2018-03-15T09:09:31.000Z

My dad got a call from one of these once. He had enough savvy to get them off the phone, telling them their son works in IT and will sort any issues. They got quite irate with him and persisted it was urgent and that I wasn’t the right level to deal with this type of infection etc.

Sadly, he called me quite angry, as they had said I had been doing illegal things on the machine.

oliverkinne · 2018-03-15T10:42:02.000Z

I once had a scammer who claimed to be from our telco and that I had to change the “channels” on my ADSL router to get faster speeds - yeah, right…

I kept them on the line for over an hour. In the end I was getting bored and told them that I had to leave the house, but that I would call them back and get it all sorted.

Yes – over an hour!!

Funny thing is, they rang back a week later (or someone else with the same scam), and I told them that the telco engineer had been and had fixed my router and everything was much faster now. They hang up…

Eric1929 · 2018-03-15T11:45:29.000Z

yeah i had one of those recently. I asked this person “Which one? i have 2 dell servers, about 10 VMs on Hyper-V (im looking at getting VMWare, so stop cussing at me), some VMs on VirtualBox, an HP laptop and a Toshiba laptop. Can you be more precise?” The line went dead around that time. Gave me a good chuckle, plus it was right in the middle of my food prep for the next week.

jefflilland2 · 2018-03-15T12:43:40.000Z

I had one call one of my remote offices last year. They just transferred him to me. He hung up almost immediately.

brandoncarnduff1232 · 2018-03-15T13:03:12.000Z

Great story! I always have a good time with scammers. The best ones have a clearly heavy accent. I repeat “I can’t understand you” until they give up. It gives me great joy.

mattschubeck8480 · 2018-03-15T14:27:01.000Z

“You want me to download something from the Internet? Ok, but I’ll have to hang up with you because we only have one phone line and it’s shared between my phone and the computer modem. How large is the download, anyway?”

adamprowse2 · 2018-03-15T16:11:24.000Z

I’ve kept these guys on the phone for an hour before. I’ve even made posts about it lol

jackie-for-hp-emea · 2018-03-15T17:48:10.000Z

I do have to admit though, Jackie is a pretty awesome name.