Turning it around

The telephone at our home rang a few years ago.

"Hello, we are calling from Microsoft. Sir, our system is noticing an increase in viruses from your computer," said a man with an Indian accent.

"Sorry, we don't use Windows at home," I said.

I hang up the telephone.

After that moment, calls didn't stop. Indian scammers called our home every week using the same speech over and over. When they phoned, after listening to the first words, I hang up the phone.

Sometimes, when I was in a bad mood, I yelled at them and told them not to call here again. Wrong move by my side, because they don't care.

After so many years, they are still calling periodically.

This year I thought that I couldn't react that way. I wanted to turn the situation around and have some fun with these calls. I was curious to know how they scam people, so I decided to attend the phone call like I was dumb, talking with a stupid accent to see what they do.

Meanwhile, if they were trying to rob me, they won't be scamming an innocent person. I would kill two birds with one stone.

The process that they use is:

1. They tell you that they are calling from Microsoft
2. They ask you to turn on your computer
3. They make you open the command line (pressing Windows + R)
4. They show you some stupid errors from Event Viewer (these aren't viruses)
5. They suggest you download TeamViewer or similar

I'm lazy to install TeamViewer, and I don't want to give control of my computer to some random guy. So, after point 5, I always tell them that my ID number to connect to my computer is 696969... Then they realize that I wasn't that stupid.

When they notice that they got scammed back, they get pissed off and begin to swear at me. I put a smile on my face, and it feels like I was ten years old doing phone pranks.

The lesson is: use the force of your opponent in your favor. And have fun.