We get the fake Microsoft calls at least once a week. Got another one yesterday. Just hang up. No matter what you do they will call you again. It may be the same day or again the following week. How they get your number. They have machines that just dial numbers over and over in sequence, xxx-xxx-xxx1... xxx-xxx-xxx2... xxx-xxx-xxx3, etc until they get an answer. All of these scammers work the same way. They lie, frighten, and steal. They are criminals, do not give them ANY information, zero, don't answer their questions. They drive those of us in Florida crazy. They assume since we are retired and seniors that we are all uninformed and wI'll fall for their BS. NOT TRUE! The word is out there about them. Every week there are articles in the newspaper warning people of their latest scam tactics. The senior groups dicuss these things regularly at the club meetings. Spread the word to everyone you known about these scamming liers. Once they realize that nobody is falling for their scams and they are losing, rather than making money they will stop. Since the telephone companies and our government aren't doing anything to stop this we citizens must fight back the only way we can. These calls are annoying and a waste of our time. Just hang up or better yet, don't answer.
Gee… you learn something new every day. I always thought it was the high heat and humidity plus the huge bugs that drove Floridians crazy.
You list one of the main problems with these vermin when you state "…their scams…" (plural). When the public has pretty much caught on to one of their scams and it is no longer working for them, they just dream up another and go with that for as long as they can and then the process repeats.
It is not that the Government is not doing anything; it is that the wheels of justice turn very slowly and the penalties imposed on those that are caught and convicted are seldom a deterrent to others. The prohibitions against "cruel and unusual" punishments do not allow for lopping off the hands of thieves (would not stop auto-dialers, but sure would make it hard to put on a headset), so generally all that happens is a fine (which may never be collected) and rarely jail time (and that is assuming the culprit was even in this country).
+1
ArtyD
Start with "Greetings" and let them spew their garbage, take at least 20 minutes of their time, and finally begin asking them how comfortable they are.
If you have a Windows VM that you don't care if it get trashed (and can restore from snapshot), it's kind of fun to listen to their lies and watch them browse around the system showing me "evidence" of a "virus". I did that once with the kids, and even my kids where shaking their heads, kept the guy on the phone for about 45 minutes. It was even better when he called back a week later, and after about 30 minutes he realized it was me again. I learned a few new foreign words. The kids really got a huge laugh about that one.
The government may not be able to do anything about them, but I can at least slow them down a little bit.
I am not sure Cnet is a reliable source. I used to use them to download software since they claimed their stuff was virus free. That is until I got one that installed what I call a virus. It took over my search functions and a few other things and it played H..l when I tried to get rid of it. It took me an hour to locate how to remove it completely and then do it. It was called Cherry something.
Haven't had one of those calls lately. The man makes me scream at him. After telling him many times I didn't even have a computer, I started telling him my son works at BestBuy Geek Squad and has it in their repair shop. I don't think he knew what the GeekSquad was.
Possibly, but it depends upon VM system. Some Linux based systems use virtual NAT's so the local network is completely virtual in the Linux host system and doesn't directly see your router. However, it is something to careful of.
While I always applaud any effort to waste these scammers time, I do not recommend engaging these scammers. A while back, I received such a call. They had my info from the Dell breach (they had my name, address, phone number(s), model number, service tag, etc.).
I played dumb and followed their instructions (disconnecting the internet cable when I feared they might actually make some progress). After about 45 minutes, they still failed to realize that the problem with Windows on my computer was that I was running Linux instead. The call ended cordially.
After that I probably got 30 calls over the next month. May of these came at obscene hours: midnight, 2AM, 4AM, 6AM, etc. from a variety of numbers. Due to family medical problems, I am unable to take the phone off the hook at night.
The enjoyment of wasting their time was outweighed by my resulting poor sleep.
If they have your information, that's definitely is a problem. If I know it's a scammer (they called a DNC number, so that's kind of a given) and they have any of my information, I generally tell them they must have old information because I'm not "John Smith", I just got this cell number last week, or whatever. You definitely don't want to confirm to them that any of the information is valid, and if possible hopefully convince them that at least some is not valid anymore.
Since the DNC list is only for telemarketers, your statement that a caller is a scammer simply because they're calling your DNC listed number is incorrect.
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