What's up with the sudden increase in guys calling me for the old scam of "We received a report that your internet is running slow, please navigate to our support site and install some random .exe file to allow us remote access to your computer".

 

I've had about 4 of these calls over the weekend, and just received one from a guy from "I.T. Counsellor". I followed the call through, pretending to be a novice, just to see where it was leading, and at the point where he tried to get me to install their funky .exe file (I assume it's some kind of remote desktop thing - probably dirty as sin) I killed the call. He even claimed it was "My ISP BT" that had "Reported" the fault. My ISP is not BT.

 

It's funny when I suddenly tell these guys that I am "in I.T. and a Web Person" - they go silent for a second or two.

 

Phoning over a Bank Holiday weekend. Is there any depths to which these guys will not go?

 

Any of you experienced a sudden surge in these calls over the past few weeks? Have my details been leaked to these guys somehow, and if so, any idea how?

That's another take - I usually get "we have identified problems with your Windows operation system"

they are scum, roll on the Pakistan-Indian nuclear war.

I've had an increase in out sourcing companies calling lately to try get work from me. I always act dumb saying I have loads of work for them and then after they've wasted sufficient time on the phone I tell them I'm a farmer and I need them to come and move all the bull**** I've just been given.

They never get the reference and just ask "are you not a web developer?".

You can tell it's them because there's this pause of about 5 seconds after you say hello.

 

What I've started doing now with a couple of them is when they say "Hello" back - I say "Hi, have you phoned me to tell me my computer's slow and there's some software you can offer me from your dodgy company to improve it's performance?".

 

And funnily enough they say "Yes" and continue with the phone call. But only after a few seconds pause where they appear totally stumped by my Derren Brown style preconception of what they were going to say.

 

My guess is that they have their calls monitored by their line manager and whatever you say to them, they have to continue the call - hence the strange response you receive, Mike to your farmer joke. In a way I'm annoyed by them and in another (more liberal) way I feel sorry for them, if this is the only way they can support their families etc. That doesn't make it ok though. What an embarrassing job.

 

I think I received 3 of these calls no less on Saturday.

 

Also, I think although most of their "companies" seem to be in London, the 5 second pause between me saying hello and them responding would suggest that maybe they're actually calling from India / Pakistan and the cold calling is outsourced to them by the London company.

 

These companies should be named and shamed definitely ("I.T. Counsellor" for a kick off It counselor) Notice how "Counselor" is spelt wrong in the url and the company name . It's getting silly. I fully expect my usual 2 or more phone calls tomorrow from them, and I'm gonna plan what to say to freak them out, have a laugh with it. Also I think they might be given false names - when 3 people with extremely heavy asian accents sounding a long way away phone you and claim their names are "Kevin", "Graham", and "Michael" there's definitely summat afoot.

 

Edited May 30, 201115 yr by Gibson

That why I don't have a landline

 

Have you ever tried talking to these people and attempting a casual conversation? Ask them what the weather is like

That why I don't have a landline

 

 

Neither do i!

We used to get those kind of calls to the office all the time last year. We tried the open and honest "Look, we know you're a scammer. It's not going to work, please stop calling" approach but it didn't stop. It ended up with us saying we'll put them through to the manager which meant we put them on hold for 2 mins while we loaded up the FoneJacker soundboard and played that to them on speaker phone. They got fed up eventually.

"We have identified that your wallet is too heavy..."