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I get them from the "National Police Squad" and the "FBI Department of Crime".
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Awww! No fair - all I get are "My name is Janice from Talktalk" in an Indian accent ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Does Janice want you to "press 1", too? 
BTW, this was, a well spoken, English guy. So, at least they are making an effort!
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� Forogar � wrote: "FBI Department of Crime".
To me this begs the question, what other departments does the FBI have...?
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Department of anti-crime seems an obvious one.
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If they investigated each other, would they cancel each other out...?
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� Forogar � wrote: National Police Squad
A perfect opportunity to trot out a few choice quotes[^]? 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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And I guess...
pressing one then you call back and it is a very expensive call that gives them money?
I ask genuinely because this is something I didn't know about yet.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Nelek wrote: this is something I didn't know about yet.
Seriously? These sort of calls have been going on for years. There was a regular one a few years ago which claimed they were from Microsoft support and, "we have seen a problem with your computer on the internet". I kept a couple of them talking for a while until I got bored and told them to get an honest job.
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: claimed they were from Microsoft support and, "we have seen a problem with your computer on the internet".
As a Microsoft contractor, I just tell these guys Microsoft has an army of lawyers just salivating at the thought of going after fraudsters like them, and they're just a phonecall away, should I decide to bring this to their attention.
They typically don't stay too long on the call after this.
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That won't work as there is not much that lawyers can do against criminals. And these people all operate out of unknown locations in India.
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Not always so unknown... see the work of Jim Browning[^] on YouTube; he specialises in tracking down scammers, and delights in simply addressing them by (their real) name, or in one lovely case, when granting remote access to his (sacrificial) computer, having a desktop background that happened to be a Streetview image of the scammer's home. He's very thorough, and very calm with them. A positive joy to behold.
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There have been published stories from Microsoft successfully going after and shutting down these scammers. Doesn't matter much to me how likely they are to actually go after them - just mentioning that the department is only a phonecall away is usually enough to get them to hang up.
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When they used to actually have people call, I said " I want your name, your company's name and address."
Funny, I never got a reply.
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I once went along with one of these guys a few years ago just to see where it would lead. He tried to assure me that he had tracked me down through some "unique identifier" assigned to my computer that it was somehow magically broadcasting over the internet. Told him I've been working in the hardware/software asset management area for decades (it is the case), and that unique identifiers is one thing that pretty much all computers lack. Intel tried to introduce serial numbers with the Pentium III, and was very, very quickly made aware that it was a bad idea.
Everything he was throwing at me, I calmly explained how and why everything in the script he was following didn't make sense. He gave up trying to convince me of the legitimacy of his call and hung up.
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I personally prefer the "you've just stumbled into an FBI honeypot".
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They call completely random people. A honeypot would be selective about who they attract.
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: Seriously?
Yeah... My relative got called by an indian scam center and got the PC erased (luckily for him only erased because I could recover most of the content, an encryption would have been way worse)
I have received scam post and scam emails.
But never a case like this.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I, (like everyone), get plenty of scam calls, but I think this is a new variant! I'm always a bit reluctant to follow the instructions, (actually, I'm very bad at following ANY instructions!), because I am never sure if there's some potential hack on my mobile that they can execute. Don't know if that's possible?
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5teveH wrote: I am never sure if there's some potential hack on my mobile that they can execute. Don't know if that's possible?
Well, the GSM standard has codes for call forwarding etc. that can be entered at the keyboard of the phone app. They all begin with '*#' and end with '#'. This does not mean that there aren't other codes that have other prefixes/suffixes.
(I've discovered that my current phone doesn't accept the GSM codes in the phone app. It does, however, provide other methods to perform the same actions.)
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Pressing '1' does two things.
First, it often passes you through to the live agent (robo-callers are paid even less so they don't waste money until the think they've caught a live one).
Second, and the much worse part: you have confirmed to them an active and viable phone number to call back with their other warnings (and sell, probably more lucrative).
It's like (foolishly) clicking "remove me from mailing list" on SPAM.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Makes sense.
I was looking for an obscure technical reason, but as usually... Occam's razor provides the best explanation.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Better than your car warranty expiring...
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The last time the IRS robocalled me with this scam, I took the opportunity to mess with Officer O'Reilly begging him to please send officers to my residence immediately as I had a nice surprise for them. Of course nobody showed up for the cake.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"
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Same here. I did press one, but they hung up.
I had a call last week from "Peter at BT Openreach" telling me my router had been reporting errors.
I asked him if I could take him through security, and what was my name. He hung up pretty sharp.
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