My wife got a call this evening on our phone from someone claiming to be from "Windows Technical Department" saying that my Windows computer had a virus. Knowing that this was some sort of scam, Nicole says let me give you to my husband so he can work with you. ;) Oh, goodie. I get to have fun with the guy. We exchange pleasantries over the phone and trying to be as pleasant and chipper as I could be. The poor sap does not know about what is going to hit him...
Me - "I will be happy to work with you to solve our virus problem."
Him - "Go ahead and turn on your computer." Okay....my first problem. He wants me to turn on my computer...I have 3 of them on in a 5 ft reach...all of them on. :)
"Okay - Turned on." I wonder if the 5 seconds it took me to "turn on my computer" was enough time. "My Ubuntu Linux box is turned on."
"Look at your keyboard. Do you see the 'C-T-R-L' key on the lower left of your keyboard?"
"I see the control key.'
"Do you see the key that looks like the Windows logo?"
"No, I see the Option key on my Apple keyboard."
"Uh...are you in front of your Windows computer?"
At that point I had enough. I told him to stop trying to scam me ("this is not a scam", "Let me get one of my Microsoft certified people."...give me their numbers and I will check them out). I told them if they Google their own company, there are many links that say they are a scam. Protest after protest until I was done with the call. The number of the caller ID shows up as 987654321 (spoofed caller ID).
I really have to get up a VM quicker next time so I can try to see what they want me to do and better understand the scam. They will call back (obviously) because they called here 2 weeks ago from 0256592258.
Microsoft has even put up their own site to avoid these kind of phone scams. The US site on this can be found here.
Update on 2012-12-24 20:32 by Kirk
I received another one of these types of calls on September 22 from an organization calling themselves the "Software and Maintenance Department of OnlinPCCare" with the number 646-503-6605 in the caller id. They did not get much past "your event viewer errors are indications of a critical error from the internet" before I called them out again. Poor guy. :)
I did some more research on this type of scam and ran into some videos and information from Troy Hunt, a techie from down under. He has a particularly good blog post about it here.
Rep. Cliff Stearns lost in his primary bid for reelection this evening. Left leaning tweets are pointing Stearns House hearings/rants on Solyndra and Planned Parenthood, but those were NEVER brought up in the primary. Rep. Stearns has a lot of the blame of the loss (boring ads, underestimating competition, unenergized base), but there are many other things that led to Yoho's primary win in this:
- The district had changed. With redistricting, about 1/3 of the voters are new to the district. There was some hubbub at the beginning of the primary season on which district he would run reelection for (currently rep in District 6) because of multiple homes. His district became more rural (than the primarily Marion County his old district was in), and a bit more conservative.
- Underestimated opponents - Stearns left more than 2M dollars in the bank.
- The rural counties (and Alachua where Yoho lives) went very strongly for Yoho, while all 4 candidates split the vote in the larger counties (Stearns had probably 40% in those larger counties).
- Strongly supported by Tea Party leaning Republicans - Yoho won every Tea Party straw poll in the district leading up to the election.
- A strong anti-incumbent bent to Yoho's campaign. He promised to not be there more than 8 years if elected, and blamed long term politicians for the mudslinging and ineffectiveness of Washington.
- Effective use of whatever advertising Yoho could muster. Living in the district, we saw only 1 ad (played several times) on TV, and was brilliantly done. He also effectively used social media (Facebook) and YouTube to promote his message.
A surprising defeat for Stearns, but not as shocking if you understand the dynamics of what happened in the district.
When driving from my brother-in-law to my in-laws house, I say something that always seem to tick me off. When there is a lot of traffic, why do you think you can get out of line, try to pass 2 or 3 cars, and then squeeze right back in, causing everyone you just passed to slam on the brakes behind you?
While I am on it, why does everyone rubberneck in South Carolina?
What would it take for me to vote for either Pres. Barack Obama or Gov. Mitt Romney? Would you like a list?
- End the TSA (obvious if you read any of my tweets).
- End the PATRIOT Act - the abomination of our rights
- End the war on drugs - at least start the decriminalization process.
- Stop using executive orders to bypass our "elected" Congress.
- Come up with a real solution to the entitlement problem that does not place an extreme burden on the next generation.
- Cut out the welfare for the military-industrial complex.
- Stop corporations, unions, and other special interest groups from having major influence in the writing of legislature.
- Allow citizens to exercise their free natural rights that are guaranteed under the Constitiution.
- Start realizing that you and the Congress are supposed to work for the people.
Simple list, but I can't see many "major party" politicians being able to even come close to offering any solutions to this.
That is why I continue to vote 3rd party whenever possible in elections.
Some of my favorites today.
