Monday, February 4, 2013

Scams and How We Can Laugh at Them

Earlier today I received an interesting and entertaining phone call from an unnamed, thickly accented Indian woman. I want to tell you what happened, not just to warn you, but to tell how to find humor in even the most devious of people.

I didn't answer the phone. My roommate did. From what I gathered from him later, she had called asking about the computer and he referred her to me and gave her my name. He's old and doesn't know better, so we'll excuse this.

She started her charade by saying that she worked for Microsoft. She said that she had been receiving  reports of error messages from my computer every time I got online. She said that these error messages detailed that there was a malicious virus on my computer that was eating and destroying my software, files, and formatting discs.

Let's stop for a second. No, no, and no. This is not how things work. This is not how information is made available. There were no error messages on my end. And these are not things that viruses attack. At this point my bullshit detector was immediately activated and I decided to play.

So, I inquired, "What can I do to remedy this situation?"

"That's why I am calling. Is your computer on?" (yes, and I'm online, but you know that right?) "Can you tell me what keys are on the bottom right of your keyboard? Do you see the C-T-R-L key?"

"They control key? Why yes, I do have one of those."

"What's next to that?"

"That would be the function key," I was using a overly friendly voice for this part.

"Yes, yes, the F-N key. And next to that..."

"That would be the windows key, ma'am."

"Can you push the windows key and 'R'?"

Yeah, so had I have been doing that, it would have started up the "run" screen. Instead, I opened Google.

"Now type in cwvev"

"What was that?" I honestly didn't hear what she said, although she was easier to understand than a lot of telemarketers that I've encountered.

"Type E as in egg you had for breakfast, V as in violin you can play, E as in egg for breakfast again, N as in Nigeria the country..."

Half-way through this long and drawn out thing, Google had already told me this was a scam in the very first result. I ignored the rest of what she said so I could read a nice testimonial.

"Ma'am, let me stop you right there. I deceived you. I was not typing that into the run bar, but into Google. It says right here that a heavily accented Indian woman is calling people and scamming them..."

"ARE YOU CRAZY, ADRIAN?? Jesus Christ! I never do such thing!"

"It's not polite to take the Lord's name in vain, ma'am, especially in a professional call."

"Are you crazy? Jesus Christ! Are you crazy, Adrian? Jesus Christ! I never seen a computer in all the days of my life."

"But you work for Microsoft?" At this point, I couldn't help but to laugh out loud.

"Are you crazy? Jesus Christ!"

"Have a nice day."

"Jesus Christ!"

I had to hang up. Her reaction was just too funny. There is nothing funnier in this world that to hear someone with that accent curse. Hands down, hilarious.

--

Okay, I share this story to tell you that these scams exist. This one is called the Event Viewer Scam. This woman's goal, had I had followed her directions, was for me to give her remote access of my PC. What she would have done with it, I don't know.

Victims have reported being led to the Event Viewer section of the computer. From there, they are told that this represents all the "viruses" on their computer. Convinced of the existence of the viruses, these people then referred to a remote access program to allow "Microsoft" to scan their computer further. Other's say that they offered to upgrade their Windows for a fee.

Please people, don't fall for these scams. Don't trust anyone calling you saying that only they can fix your problem. Don't trust anyone who doesn't even know your name. You didn't win a prize. You don't want to donate to their charity. Your computer isn't broken. Keep your bullshit detectors on.

And if you feel the need to mess with these people, please share it on the internet. Hopefully they'll get an error message when you do.

Jesus Christ and Crazy Bless You!

2 comments:

  1. BWHAHAHAH I think it is hilarious that you busted her.. that was priceless

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my goodness that is hilarious and just to think there are actually people out there doing this kind of thing is funny in its self. Thanks for sharing your hilarious story.

    ReplyDelete

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