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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PMS Witch who wrote (83298)	10/2/2013 12:34:06 PM
From: Gottfried	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110581

PW, I enjoyed reading about your exploits, thank you :) What do you suppose they want to accomplish? Turn your PC into a zombie they control or what?

To: PMS Witch who wrote (83298)	10/2/2013 12:43:54 PM
From: Snowshoe	Respond to of 110581

What? They wanted to help you? I get those strange calls several times a year, but I always thought they were asking me to help them. Now I finally understand why they swear at me and hang up when I ask them to pay me for my help! :o)

To: PMS Witch who wrote (83298)	10/2/2013 3:14:57 PM
From: maceng2	1 Recommendation Recommended By Cage Rattler Respond to of 110581

33 minutes had passed. It could be a new sport. Tests your PC skills, patience, and the ability to pretend to know nothing all at the same time. Who knows, it might end up more popular than golf.

To: PMS Witch who wrote (83298)	10/2/2013 4:05:20 PM
From: SmoothSail	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110581

I think I'm losing my touch. You just got too anxious to use your killer line about your son. I always enjoy your exploits with these types. We are all living vicariously through you and wish we could do the same thing.

To: PMS Witch who wrote (83298)	10/2/2013 5:59:11 PM
From: FJB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110581

RE:Expert 3 had me visit a WebSite to enable him to access my computer remotely. Do you still have the address of the website? This sounds like a good target to practice penetration testing skills on.

To: PMS Witch who wrote (83298)	11/23/2013 1:20:04 AM
From: B.K.Myers	3 Recommendations Recommended By goldworldnet Mario :-) shadowman Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110581

A very similar incident happened to by youngest brother about 2 years ago. He did not know better and ended up paying them $500 to "clean up" his computer. The program that they installed was actually a virus, or at least acted like a virus and displayed warning messages that a virus had been detected on his computer. He ended up buying their “virus protection” program and his credit card was charged $90 every month. As soon as I found out about what had happened to him, I had him call his credit card company and they reversed all of the charges. A couple of times over the past two weeks, I received a similar phone call from the “Microsoft Windows Security Team”. I wasn't prepared the first couple of times but I expressed concern each time and they kept calling me back. Two days ago I had some spare time when they called so I played a similar game with them. They told me that they had detected several viruses on my computer. Although I had all three of my computers turned on, I told them to wait while I booted up my computer. I stretched that out for almost 5 minutes and told them that my computer had been running slower and slower. That seemed to delight them! Then they went through the routine of having me start the event viewer and showed me all of the warning and error messages. They told me that these were viruses and told me not to click on any of them. I expressed my concern and continued to play along with them. One of their experts had me enter a web site address in the run box, by pressing the windows key and the letter “R" and type in www.ammyy.com. I googled the site on my other computer and found that it is a free remote desktop software program. I purposely mistyped the web site name several times and they had me re-enter it again and again. I finally entered the site name but replaced one of the dots with a comma. I received an error message saying that the site could not be found and reported that to the expert. Then I told then expert that someone was knocking on my front door and asked him to wait on the phone while I answered the door. He was willing to wait since by this time he had already spent more than ten minutes talking with me and thought that he had me hooked. After 3 or 4 minutes I got back on the phone with him and told him that the cable guy was at the door to install a new cable modem for me. I asked if he wanted to talk with the cable guy to explain what was happening to my computer but he declined, so I asked if he would wait on the phone for about 10 minutes while the cable guy installed the new modem. He agreed to wait. After leaving him on hold for about 10-15 minutes I got back on the phone and explained that the new modem was defective and that the cable guy had to go back to the office to get another replacement modem and would return in about an hour, so I would not have Internet access for about an hour. That is when I was transferred to another expert. This expert explained to me that all Microsoft Windows computers are vulnerable to various computer viruses and want to show me another way to see those viruses. So he had me run msinfo32 and look at the Services State listed in the Software Environment of System Information. He pointed out that some Services were running but that some were stopped. This he said was caused by the virus on my computer. He then suggested that I could purchase his companies protection program that would fix all of these problems and for a small recurring fee would protect me in the future. I than told him that my sister has an Apple computer that run just fine. He told me that Apple computers do not have the problems Microsoft Windows problems have. So I asked him if I could have the Apple operating system installed on my Windows computer. I was having so much fun by this time that it was difficult for me to not to break out laughing. My other brother had been present during this whole episode and was starting to crack up laughing too. Since I had an errand that I had to run in a few minutes, I decided it was time to quit playing with the scammer so I hold him that since Christmas was coming up soon and that our computer was running so slow that I would be buying a new Apple computer for Christmas so I would not need his protection software and thanked him for making me aware of all the problems and dangers of Microsoft Windows computers. After hanging up and having a good laugh with my brother, I checked the time and realized that I had managed to keep these scammers busy for almost 37 minutes. I think that I will make a list of how to keep these scammers on the phone even longer for the next time they call. I would also like to have them call me multiple times so I make note of their phone numbers and report the phone numbers to the police. B. K.