Saturday 6 April 2013

Gnat-brained people and frog spawn

I had a guy ring the other day to tell me he could sort out my computer problems.




I put on my credulous voice and said how wonderful, what should I do?

He said was my computer logged in and online?

I said, yes, it was right there in front of me.


In fact, it was upstairs and off, but he was being a lying bastard so I thought why shouldn't I?







We had an interesting exchange where he told me what to type and what to click and we got as far as:
Him: ‘Now there should be a box come up on the screen.’
Me: ‘Oh yes, there it is.’
Him: ‘What does it say inside it?’
Me: ‘Uh... it’s hard to see without my glasses. Is it some numbers you want?’
Him: ‘Yes, yes, that’s right. Can you get your glasses?’

I was going to read him a lecture about targeting vulnerable people and how would he like it if it were his elderly mother/granny etc? 

But in the end I just got fed up, so said, ‘I'm bored with this now. If you think I'm going to hand over data that lets some total stranger control my computer, you have the brain of a gnat.’ And I hung up.

On the up side, there’s frog spawn in the pond.

3 comments:

  1. I rolled when I read this post! This happened to my husband once and he stayed on the phone for twenty minutes messing with the person's head. Those gnats deserve it!

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  2. You're right, they do!
    When it's straight sales, I try to be kind to the person at the end of the phone, because they're probably doing a horrible job with long hours for under minimum wage. But when it's out-and-out fraud like this, I have no conscience about stringing them along.

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    Replies
    1. And why do they always try to convince you they're calling from somewhere close by when It's patently obvious their name is not David and they're somewhere on the subcontinent? I had one of these yesterday and, like you, I was just rude and dismissive. Thanks for bringing a bit of humour to this irritating and cruel piece of attempted deception, Penny.

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