For one reason or another, I tend to get a lot of scam calls from fake Microsoft employees trying to convince me that my computer is infected with malware. The first thing they do is tell me that my PC has been taken over by hackers and malware and that the Microsoft servers keep getting reports from my machine. They walk me through running Window’s EventViewer and direct me to the Administrative Events log. This particular log is riddled with errors and warnings that occur during normal usage of Windows. You heard me right – normal usage. Regular, non-nerdy folks don’t know this. So the scammers use this to put folks on the defensive and it allows them to quickly build a trust relationship. It also allows them to easily convince their victims to install remote access software so they can “fix your machine” or “make it faster”. Their end game, of course, is to take over your PC and use it for God knows what. But I never allow it to get that far.
I usually take these guys on a wild goose chase. After 5 minutes or so, they get frustrated and hang up on me. I get a few laughs out of it. And 5 minutes on the phone with me means 5 minutes they’re not scamming some poor sap who doesn’t know any better.
But something strange happened on Friday night. I received one of these calls and took it a little further than I normally do. Let’s just say things got weird. You can listen to it below. Let me know what you think. 🙂