by So I was sittin at home after college, and the house phone start ringing. It was some call centre in India. They asked for my father by name and I said he wasn't home. So they asked if I was sitting at the computer, which I was (for a change).
The woman (Anne Waston??) then began to detail how my computer was getting errors and sending them ("Microsoft") error messages over the internet and thats why they were calling me.
I'd heard of this scam, which is rampant over here at the moment, so was hoping I'd eventually get it so I didn't feel left out!
Anyway, as I knew it was a scam, I figured I was in no danger and could have some level of control. And besides, I was curious to what they'd say to try scam me! So, the woman starts making me go through Event Viewer and points out that all them bog-standard normal every day background errors that it was showing me, are in actual fact serious system errors caused by hackers and viruses getting into my system!!
So she then went into great detail (reading from a script) about how these errors were going to kill my PC if I didn't do something about it. I stopped her mid-sentence to ask a question and she told me just to listen, and continued on with the script. I then asked was she part of Microsoft and if I could have a contact number to call her back....so she went quiet and got a supervisor. The supervisor was a stern sounding woman who told me that my PC was seriously infected and should listen to her agent, and then she put me back onto the original woman. She then told me to go into the C:\windows\inf folder and told me all the files in there were viruses and all sorts of bad stuff that would eventually clog up my system and kill it. FYI, the files in there are perfectly normal and used by Windows Drivers.
Here's where it got interesting....
I was waiting for the big sell. After a few minutes reading from the script she got me to go to a website, 24x7pchelp.com and purchase the special super mega cool software off that site, for €160!! Mad bitch! So she talked me through filling in my personal details, name, address, phone, email, then onto the next page!! Credit card details!! So I had added the product to the cart and I could tell she was starting to get a bit excited, so I was acting all eager to get my PC cleaned, still pretending to be computer illiterate. So I filled in fake crap in the credit card details and she told me to click submit. Twice, and then a third time to make sure I clicked it. I told her I did.....but wait..."Oh, theres an error" I proclaimed!! Haha, dumb bitch was so pissed off! I could hear it in her voice, she was getting very excited and brought me through the whole process, start to finish again, except this time pushing me on a bit faster! So we got to the end again, and I was like "Oh ye totally, I clicked it and its gone through now. It says 'Order confirmed' on the screen!". So she believed me about that, and seemed a bit relieved over the phone.
But that wasnt all! She then put me onto her colleague, who was apparently MCSE certified, who told me my warranty had expired. "What warranty?" I asked. "You're computer warranty" he said. I asked was it my Microsoft Windows warranty or what was it, but he just kept shrugging me off, eager to get on with his part of the scam. So anyway, at this point my computer is still susceptible to hackers, even though i just "paid" €160 for some software (which I assume was to be delivered by post maybe?). So he continued on and got me to type in "assoc" at the command line. He then asked me if I saw this:
.zfsendtotarget=CLSID\{888DCA60-FC0A-11CF-8F0F-00C04FD7D062}
He called out that last bit with the numbers (3 times...it was a bad line
) and told me this string is unique to my PC and it was to prove that they had the right PC that was sending them these errors! 
FYI, that's a common windows string every PC has. Its to do with file extensions or something. Or "Send to Desktop" or something perfectly normal anyway.
So off he went anyway telling me how diseased I was and all the rest and promised me for "a one time fee..." he could reactivate my warranty and ensure my software was kept up to date! Tosser!
He then told me that I'd need to download some software so that he could connect to my PC, and take control of it and fix it. Haha ye right. So he sent me to this website ammyy.com (very legit sounding for Microsoft) and asked me to click on Ireland and download the software. This is where I drew the line and stopped....but I figured before I revealed I knew it was a scam, I'd see how far I could get.
So he told me to run the software and to give him a 7-digit ID number on the software. I literally googled "7-digits" and called out the first number I saw. I had to confirm it like 6 times, then for some reason he got another bloke on the phone who then told me it was an 8 digit number. I then had to say "oops, ye i left out a number..."
but they were desperate I suppose so just accepted the number. I assume the number was some ID in their little Client-Server software that allows them to identify the client they want to connect to coz they kept telling me to "click accept...click accept" to which I replied "I am...I am!!!". 
They could smell a cash scam so kept on going. they finally figured the number I gave was a horseshit and asked me to confirm it. This time they told me it was an 8-digit number, beginning with 1. Out of pure fluke, that quick google i did earlier has an 8-digit number beginning with 1, so thats what they got. Cue more "click accept....click accept...!" for another 10 minutes before they thought maybe my internet was down, even though I'd just apparently bought their scam anti-virus software online and apparently just downloaded their scam remote desktop software. So he got me to ping google and i told him I got 4 replies. At this point he told me to stop giggling!!
I'd also been on the phone for over an hour asking them to repeat everything they said twice or 3 times and finally getting to reverse all them support calls I used to receive from clueless users. I was nearly gonna even tell them I had a Mac but I figured that'd end the call, and I was bored.
Unfortunately, long distance calls from India must be expensive coz after all this time and seeing as he was getting nowhere, he must have figured he was getting nowhere so just hung up on me! The call had dropped about 5 times during this, so I was hoping they'd ring back again....but alas, not return call!
FYI, Microsoft will NEVER ring your house phone, or mobile. EVER!
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