The phone rings this afternoon and wakes me from my nap.

Still groggy I miss the name of the company the female with an Indian accent says.

Her: It has come to our attention that there is a virus on your computer.
Me: How do you know that?
Her: Your computer has a ID number and has been flagged.
Me: Oh didn't know that.
Her: We would like access to your computer to remove the virus.
Me:(playing dumb) How do you know there is a virus on my computer?
She: mumbles of some nonsense.
Me: Why don't you remove the virus if you already have access to my computer?

Silence from her

Me: Have a nice day. and hang up.

Guess there will be a week or to of these calls now.

Wow,you were polite. I'm way past that stage but I might try that next time. It's got to a point now that if I answer the phone and it's an Indian voice I'm almost 100% certain it will be a scam. Those dodgy call centres have a lot to answer for.

My wife's friend got a similar call a few months ago, the friend who answered the call does not speak English so she passed the phone to my wife, and so started the spiel about the computer having a virus and he was from Microsoft and could fix it, my wife's friend is in her late 80s and does not have a computer, nor even a mobile phone but the caller would not accept that and got quite irate about it, the wife hung up.

this last week I have had a few calls from PayPal asking for info which I refuse to give, I did make direct contact with PayPal myself and established that even though one of the numbers originated in Ireland it was not from PayPal and that PayPal had not been trying to contact me.

Be careful out there.

I short circuit all of those calls. If I don't recognize the number, I don't answer.

Same, plus adding the number to my block list. Good lord that list is HUGE.

Use "Hiya" app on my phone stops most such calls on first ring.

We just hand the phone to my 4 yr old grandson. He loves talking to these guys

Chucky, was just stringing her along, wasting her time so another will have a short reprieve from her. The next time will be less polite and even less polite after that.

A couple of months ago had another call that woke me from my nap and I was very unpleasant from the get go. Had second thoughts afterwards tho as just caught one word of where she was calling from but wasn't quite sure I caught the word correct. The doctor's office calls to confirm appointments and this could have been one of those. Had me worried that I might have to find a new doctor.

Catherine from the MicroSoft Office of Computer Voices called the other day and had me laughing.

Apparently there is a virus on my computer that will disable my MicroSoft licenses in either 24 or 48 hours (she said both) if I didn't call a special number.

To make matters worse, apparently "several countries" had also compromised my IP address and that needed to be reset as well.

Actually, my IP address being compromised isn't the least bit surprising. Darned thing has been known to appear on some rather seedy and questionable sites showing "adult content."

Archie, you almost made me shoot water through my nose! I can just imagine how those conversations went. LOL!

Mine is too. I often wonder what the upper limit is for that list.

There is one old lady that will phone me, it's not a scam, it is a wrong number, I'll have a week of calls from her then nothing for ages then another load and so on, we think she is suffering from dementia, she has been calling my number for maybe 4 years now. The past couple of days she has been trying to inform Noreen that she has left her umbrella. I wonder who she is, after about the third call and I answer the phone all I hear at the other end is "Verdomme!" and she hangs up, my wife has tried to explain to her that she has the wrong number and then you get another call from her the following day, it has been almost a year since I last had a call from her, yesterday I had 3 and today 1 from her. One of these days I'm going to call back and see who answers.

Whenever I get these calls you can her all the other people in the background. I can just picture what kind of working environment it is. I see a large, dank, drab room in an old building with hundreds of workers and phones crammed into it. It has very bad lighting and no ventilation. I am thinking somewhere in India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh.

I wonder what their success ratio is. I bet they get about 10 out of 100. That probably adds up to big bucks being made.

last time I got one of these calls it went something like this -

Hello?

hello this is the computer support department

what can I do for you?

your computer is sending out important information

it is!?

yes, your computer is sending out important information

can you tell me what?

it's just sending out important information!

oh my god no

yes, your computer is sending out important information

oh my god. have you got the pictures of me , the goat and the lubrication?



...he hung up.

I use these kinds of calls for entertainment, pretending to do what they ask and claiming not to know very much about computers. I like when they ask if I opened windows and I say it's snowing outside that they are frozen shut or something equally dumb, copying their accent or worse speaking in asian sounding gibberish, once I did the Liam Neeson "I'm a man with particular skills" bit with some variations. I'm always getting fake friend requests in Facebook Messenger form supposedly gorgeous young ladies and these are fun at the pub with friends looking on. After stringing them along for a bit I tell them that I have now tracked their IP and know that they are actually a guy and in a moment I'll have their address and they freak and shut down their account. Loads of Laughs

On the wrong number thing, I occasionally get Dwayne calling for LaQuiche. As in "The French Dish" LaQuiche.

"Who's this? Put LaQuiche on!"
"Dude, you dialed the wrong number."
"I know what damned number I called [racial epitaph], give her the damned phone."
"You called the wrong number."
"Mother f**ker, I will come over there and beat your ass. Put her on, I know she there."
"She ain't 'cause you didn't call her phone."
"Wait, you sound white."
"Probably because I am."
"#%&*$#, stupid b*tch gave me this number."
"Been there, done that. No problem, Dwayne."
"Wait, how you know my name?"
"Caller ID."

So anyhow, Dwayne sometimes tries to call LaQuiche from a land line and invariably calls me instead, as he is somewhat dyslexic, I reckon.

It's gotten to where we actually chat a bit when he calls - and no, we've never set a time and place to meet, as that would take all the mystery out of things. But he's sticking to the conditions of his probation, which is good to hear.

Every now and then I'll chat with those callers too. I usually just say I'm using Linux, and they don't know how to handle that. Once I acted like I was doing what they wanted and they had me type ipconfig or something to try to get my IP address, and after I'd said I'd typed it they asked what it said on the screen, and I said "your mother services camels" or something like that. He got all angry and I just hung up at that point.

I just have a cell phone, no "land line". The only calls I get are about my "car warranty" about to expire...

when I get those car warranty calls, I ask if they cover a 1978 chevy pick up or a 1999 suburban with 250k miles.

Haha yeah, I drive an '03 Ford T-Bird. :P