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Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...

10 Oct 11 - 02:26 PM (#3236869)
Subject: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: gnu

... and says they have detected that there is something wrong with my PC. He wants me to do this and that and I figure out it will launch the event viewer. But, I kept asking him (at least 8 times and also asking him why he wouldn't tell me) what would happen next. This went on for about 3 minutes until I said that I wasn't gonna do it because I figured he was just trying gain access to my PC because my PC was working fine and I didn't understand how some fuckin guy 8000 miles away could find out my PC wasn't working properly.

That's when he said "Fuck all your wives." a couple of times and hung up.

Did I piss him off?... enough?

Oh... fwiw... 1-999-910-0157 was the number he called from.

I immediately dialed the RCMP National Anti-Telephone Fraud line and heard... "We are presently in a staff meeting or experiencing thechnical difficulties. Please call us back later." Same thing later... and later... and...


10 Oct 11 - 02:33 PM (#3236873)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: MGM·Lion

Why talk to him at all? As soon as I hear a sub-continental voice say, "Am I talking to Mr Mayor?", or "Mr Mar, I am calling about the faults on your computer", I just hang up. I reckon that if I have it wrong after all and it is a genuine call, they will come back.

It has never happened yet...

~M~


10 Oct 11 - 02:35 PM (#3236876)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: John MacKenzie

I do the same, just did it again last Saturday.


10 Oct 11 - 02:36 PM (#3236877)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: Gurney

Well, Gnu, that was pretty good advice, if crudely put. I'd have said make love to them.

I've had a couple of phishing expeditions seemingly coming from banks operating here. I reported them, too, but it is so common nowadays.....


10 Oct 11 - 02:49 PM (#3236889)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: John MacKenzie

I have caller display, and if it shows 'caller's number unavailable', I don't answer.


10 Oct 11 - 02:55 PM (#3236895)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: gnu

Me too, Giok, but I was havin a few ales and felt like I needed a friend to chat with. He WAS friendly, and attempted to be helpful... for a while.


10 Oct 11 - 03:07 PM (#3236905)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: Richard Bridge

How do you know he was from Pakistan?


10 Oct 11 - 03:35 PM (#3236923)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: MikeL2

hi

We get them too. Just had another today. I have caller ID but it shows as "International" = trouble is my wife and I have relatives out in Spain and all their calls come in and show as "International" so we have to answer.

But like Michael we just hang up. Seems the best way of dealing with them.

Cheers

Mikel2


10 Oct 11 - 04:04 PM (#3236931)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: gnu

"How do you know he was from Pakistan?"

Elementary, my dear Bridge. Allow me to elucidate. The Indian and Pakistani accents, when they are speaking English, are very similar. However, there is a slight difference which can usually sway the detection and, given the fact that he said, "Fuck ALL YOUR wives." points to the possibility that he is Muslim. Add it all up and the evidence falls in favor of, although inconclusively, of course, the gentleman being Pakistani.

Now, I could have said mid-Asian or some such sub-continent whatever, but I think it adds up to be a reasonable probability.

Or, at best, a wild guess.

Besides that, what's yer point?


10 Oct 11 - 04:17 PM (#3236939)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: Richard Bridge

So he might have been a Pakistani national elsewhere?

It's the jumping to conclusions bit.


10 Oct 11 - 04:19 PM (#3236941)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: Little Hawk

Too bad you didn't have time to say...."ALL my wives? All 10 of them? Okay...should I fuck them one at a time, like with a serial port? Or is it better all in the same bed together at once, as in simultaneously via parallel port? Can you suggest?"

I have a company number and was getting an extraordinary number of pestiferous calls from various people looking to sell me something or fleece me...so I have adopted a special technique of dealing with the situation. I NEVER answer ANY caller that I don't recognize on the call display. I let them leave a message instead. Accordinly, I haven't spoken to a telemarketer or other form of pest like that in well over a year. I just watch the phone ring...look at the number (or lack of one)...say "Nope, I don't know you." and ignore it from that point on.

They almost never bother leaving a message, cos they know darned well I won't be calling them back. ;-)


10 Oct 11 - 04:21 PM (#3236943)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: catspaw49

A gnu walks into a bar and asks, "Barkeep, are you Pakistani?"

Bartender says, "Gibber mobedon aldep gegunge prairt fode maka."

Gnu walks out of the bar.




Spaw


10 Oct 11 - 04:33 PM (#3236950)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: GUEST,Peter Laban

They usually say they're calling on behalf of Microsoft and need to fix your PC. They then request you let them take over your PC for the fix. A friend of mine went for it, 'they sounded perfectly convincing', and had his creditcard details swiped. Beware!


10 Oct 11 - 05:36 PM (#3236977)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: gnu

"So he might have been a Pakistani national elsewhere? It's the jumping to conclusions bit." WTF are you on about? And, really, why? Yer startin ta sound like my good buddy from Pakistan.

Spaw... a GAY bar? I would never walk into a gay bar. I might meet up with my Pakistani buddy and, after we consumed copious quantities, loose myself in a night of wild abandon and make telephone calls to foreign nations in search of plunder.


10 Oct 11 - 05:37 PM (#3236980)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

We get good pc protection with our cable supplier (Shaw), so help" calls are ignored.

Calgary has over 20 percent "visible minorities" according to demographic surveys, so take your choice of accents, we have them all. As a result we have an incredibly varied restaurant and specialty store selection, and dishes such as murgh makani are entering our home kitchens.


10 Oct 11 - 05:39 PM (#3236981)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: DrugCrazed

No no no no! You're all doing it wrong! You get a cheap laptop from someone and you install a variant of linux on it. Then you do EVERYTHING THEY TELL YOU TO.


10 Oct 11 - 05:54 PM (#3236984)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: GUEST,999

DrugCrazed has nailed it.

Do we have a virus for YOU!


10 Oct 11 - 06:13 PM (#3236989)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: Don Firth

There are some telemarketing calls that I rather enjoy. The one where the caller starts out with, "We'd like to help you with your mortgage payments."

My wife and I bought into a coop apartment building thirty-four years ago—for about one-twentieth of what we'd have to pay now (good timing!!)—and we paid off the mortgage in four years.

So I respond, "Well, thanks, but our mortgage was paid off long ago."

This leaves them hemming and hawing and hanging in mid-air. Then, they come up with, "Well, then, we can help you with your credit card debt."

To which I respond, truthfully, "Thanks again, but we don't have any credit card debt. We use one card, and we pay it off completely every month."

Long silence. Then, "Mutter mutter." And then we both hang up. But I'm the one who's smirking.

In this day and in these times, one takes one's little victories where one can.

Don Firth

P. S. I have one hard and fast rule:   I never give out my credit card number over the phone or let anybody diddle with my computer unless I am the one who initiated the call or the computer transaction.


10 Oct 11 - 06:22 PM (#3236996)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: Bill D

Sadly, all these calls & schemes rely on there being a certain % of stupid and/or gullible people out there.

It used to the "pigeon drop" where 2 people would con an elderly person. But that meant 'personal contact'. It is much easier to sit at home and make calls and steal from you anonymously. Maybe if that crap got the death penalty......naawwwww, they'd take the odds against being caught.


10 Oct 11 - 06:25 PM (#3236997)
Subject: RE: Tech: PC. So, this guy from Pakistan calls...
From: gnu

Anyway... it was a tech question and nobody has addressed the event viewer side of it so this thread may as well be closed or moved below the line as it has become more BS than tech.

Joe? or anyone else?... move it or close it please & thanks.