The home phone rang yesterday morning. I looked at the CallerID. It showed the dialing code for Sheffield. “Ooh, this could be interesting”, I thought.
I answered it and waited a few seconds for someone at the other end to pick up.
A strong Indian accent told me that it was Andrew calling from Microsoft.
“Hi Andrew”, I said, “are you calling from the Indian office?” The delay on the line indicated that it was definitely long distance.
“No sir, I am calling from Birmingham in the UK. I am calling because our servers are picking up error…”
“So you’re not in India?”
“No sir. Our servers are picking up…”
“Or Sheffield?”
“No no, I am calling from Birmingham. Our servers are picking up error messages from your computer which indicate that someone is trying to hack into it and we would like to help you fix this”
“Hold on! A hacker, you say? In my computer? That’s not good. He could do untold damage in there!”
“Yes sir, that is why we would like to help you fix it. Are you in front of your computer?”
“I mean, he would gain access to all of my bank accounts and could steal all of my money. I’ve read about this sort of thing happening. What should I do?”
“Sir, I will help you fix this. Please press the Windows key and R at the same time. Now type CMD. What do you see?”
“A black window has opened. I’ve never seen that before. Is that right?”
“Yes. Now please type…” He proceeded to give me several commands to type in, but somehow I kept spelling them wrong. We tried this for several minutes before he decided he should pass me to his ‘supervisor’. A few seconds passed then an even stronger Indian accent came on the line. He identified himself as Richard and explained that he would help me by showing me the problem.
“Please open your Google browser and type…”
“I don’t use Google”
“OK, open Internet Explorer and…”
“I don’t use that either”
“What browser do you use?”
“Brave”
“Huh?”
“Brave”
“Er, I… please just open whatever you use and type in ‘support.me’ and tell me what you see”. I followed his instructions, but of course, this took several attempts because I kept spelling it wrong. Eventually I got there.
“OK, I have a page with a box asking for a six-digit code”
“Good. Please enter the code that Microsoft gave you when you bought the computer.” Hmmm, OK, this was a new twist.
“Sorry, I don’t remember Microsoft giving me a code”
“If you don’t have it, I can generate a new code for you”. Ahh, I see what you’re doing. Clever.
“No, hold on, I have the paperwork here somewhere, if you will just give me a minute.”
“Sir, I will generate a new code to save you time. Right, our server has now generated a new six-digit code for you. Please type in ‘q… 3… capital D…”
I looked at the clock and – fun as this was – I only had five minutes before my 10:00 meeting.
“Hold on”, I said, “how can you generate a new code for me when you haven’t even asked for my account details?”
“Our server is able to do this sir, we already have all your account details. Please type q…”
“OK then. if you have all my details, what’s my name?”
There was a few seconds pause, then “Oh go fuck yourself!” and he put the phone down on me.
I’m thinking of writing to Microsoft in Birmingham (or Sheffield) and putting in a strongly worded complaint about Richard.
Twelve minutes is pretty epic going, Sir. You are to be congratumalated. Indeedymost. I just tell them I don’t have Windows so how can they be getting errors from my Unix installation. It usually results in a similar ending to the conversation though, so they’ve probably got that scripted.
They probably don’t even know what Unix is.
I bet you had fun trying his last instruction to you.👀
Not as much fun as winding him up.
I did something similar a few years ago. I put on a shaky old voice……(I am old but my voice is fine) and agreed that indeed my computer was a bit slow. I kept him going for ages saying I had to go upstairs to the computer etc, and it would take me time to get up there. Took me ages to switch it on of course……..He kept saying click on start ( I think that is what it was) in the bottom left hand corner and I kept saying I can’t see that. I eventually got bored, said haha I use a Mac and off you f***. Then went back to my newspaper!
We got rid of the domestic land line some years ago, as all we were getting were scam calls and at least when they come on the mobile I can see a caller ID. I have found that blocking the numbers over a few years has decreased the scam calls.
Well done for playing the game, Frances! 🙂
I love it when you do this.
Wow, Richard’s a bit rude. You can’t trust these folk from Sheffield or Brum. Heh. Well played, Masher. Proud of you.
Ta muchly, Jules.
It’s a lot of fun.
they were showing on the telly the other day how a small box with 20 odd sims can generate a million scam SMS a day… and someone is going to fall for it
Hi Masher, hope you’re well mate. Retirement has given me the time to really try and help these guys resolve the problems with not only my PC but my Mum’s as well. (She has no computer, mobile or internet!) A few weeks ago I kept one going for 27 minutes whilst sitting in her garden enjoying the sunshine and watching a vast number of different birds enjoying the treats on offer on her bird feeder. On that occasion I didn’t have the pleasure of firing off a whole barrage of insults and expletives as James (I think it’s pronounced Jammis) got fed up with me and hung up. Very rude. Take care mate.
Hey Ian!
Myself and Adam were wondering about you just a few weeks ago – glad to see you’re putting your retirement to good use! 🙂
Hopefully, I’ll catch you on TU one day.