Deck16

Excuse the title. I just like to think it might, just maybe, save some poor confused pensioner when these scammers come calling. He’d Google “My Tech Online” or “mytechonline.net” and there in the search results would be the title of this article. And he’d be saved.

PC Repair Scammers. What a bunch of arseholes. I’ve dealt with them before. And I was starting to think the scam was dead when once again I pick up the phone to hear an Indian-accented voice tell me my computer may have problems.

The scam hasn’t died but it has mutated. Read on to find out more…

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They’re coming in thick and fast today. I had particular success with a call I took earlier.

But I was in no mood to go through that whole thing again. Not so soon after the last one.  Read on to see how it went:

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I just got off another phone call with another “PC Repair” scammer. So much fun! This is why I don’t put myself on the do-not-call register. (Though mind you, would that even work against these kinds of scammers?)

Yes sir, I am calling from Microsoft. That is not a cow you hear in the background.

I’ve had this kind of call a few times before. Mostly, the conversation ends within a minute because their line is so dodgy. I also get a long of suspicious hang-ups that bear the hall-marks of long-distance, so I wonder if these aren’t also scammers recoiling at a non-elderly male voice?

But when I can talk to the scammers, I’ve previously tried stringing them out, frustrating them, as per this previous encounter. But these usually end with them hanging up out of frustration, or the bad quality line dying spontaneously.

Today, I wanted to see their tactics, so I followed the instructions fairly efficiently. This time I got to the end-game. I took notes the whole way. Read on to see what methods they employ, and how I delivered the bad news I wasn’t going to actually pay up.

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Today is my day for strange phone calls, it seems.

I just got off the phone with Indian PC repair scammer. Not familiar with this scam? Take a look here to get a basic idea, and bear in mind there are many variations on a theme.

Knowing full well who they are and what they want, my plan is to string them out as long as possible to waste their time. Yes, it is sad my time is that cheap. But every minute they are talking to me is time they are not conning some granny out of her weekly pension. (Also I am curious as to exactly how they operate, for a certain idea*.)

This is not the first time they’ve called. The first time I was genuinely busy so I tried to keep them on hold because I “had the ironing on”. But they (not surprisingly) were gone when I came back.

Things went better today. Here’s what happened…

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