“Can you fix my Windows 95 computer?”: How to troll a tech support scammer
Pity the poor employees of companies like “Windows Technical Support"—scammers who make money by "fixing" computers that were never broken in the first place. For the people who pose as Windows support technicians and cold call unsuspecting victims to warn them about bogus viruses, life is good as long as they can wrangle credit card numbers and remote PC access from the gullible.
The scammer—who is generally from India but claims to live in the same country as the victim—tells whoever picks up the phone that their computer has been identified as having a virus. The scammer directs the user to look in the Windows Event Viewer, which shows a generally harmless list of error messages, and then says that this is a sign of serious infection. From there, the scammer convinces his mark to install a piece of software allowing remote access into the computer to clean up the problem, and to pay several hundred dollars in fees for the service. It's often known as the "ammyy" scam because users are sometimes directed to www.ammyy.com to install the remote desktop software.
Not everyone falls for it. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) didn’t, last week busting six fake tech support companies with names like Virtual PC Solutions and PCCare247 after having undercover agents pose as victims. Ars editor Nate Anderson didn’t fall for it, either, playing a helpless victim on the phone for 15 minutes before revealing that he knew what had been going on the whole time.
But the serious "scam trolls" elevate scammer-baiting to an art form, sometimes wasting as much as two hours on the phone as they see just how long a scammer will stay on the line. The tech support scam is an international phenomenon, and the scam trolls likewise come from across the globe. Many record their interactions with the scammers and post them for the world to hear—and learn from. Here's how the masters do it.
http://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/can-you-fix-my-windows-95-computer-how-to-troll-a-tech-support-scammer/
http://soundcloud.com/g3ksan/troll
= new reply since forum marked as read
(I never actually had MS-Bob, just curious to know what they'd tell me.... 
)
...Hell, Microsoft never could fix it either.
And this guy was..confused.
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I've used it to access Windows 7 computers that were totally screwed up and saved valued data to an external HD prior to a full reinstall.
Just make sure the stick has a fast read/write. Most any 4 gig stick will do.
Cute wallpaper too.
WTF is this...
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This is what infested my PC when I upgraded to Gnome 3.0.
Gnome tried to get ahead of Windows 8, not realizing that people are going to hate Windows 8.
Got one of those calls recently. Oddly enough, my call display said it was a local number. I was suspicious right away and started asking questions. The guy on the other end (Indian accent) got pissed off and started screaming at me that we had to act fast, my computer was FILLED with viruses. Then I kept asking which computer was he talking about, there was more than one. He kept saying 'The one with Windows' I kept telling him they all had Windows, except for one. He was confused and then said, "YOUR computer." He said he could access everything and he could 'see the infection' so I asked him, "I'm on my computer right now, if you can see it, what am I looking at? What about my daughter's computer, is her laptop infected too?" Then I told him I knew he was a fraud and that I was calling the telephone fraud hotline boy was he pissed, he started screaming and swearing and hung up (WTF did he think was going to happen?) I traced the number to a location and gave all the info to the Canadian gov't fraud hotline.
So they didn't fool me but I can totally see how older people who aren't computer savvy fall for it. The guy who called me said he was calling from the Microsoft tech support and that their security warnings had flagged my computer as infected and that I wouldn't be allowed on the internet so long as it was infected. My grandma, for instance, would have NO idea they cannot tell from their end.
I fucking hate scammers.
call from one of these scammers. They kept yelling at her to go to her computer that it had a virus. She told them "if it has a virus, my daughter will fix it" and hung up on them.
I taught her well. 
I try to waste as much of their time as possible. I pretend to be interested, tell them to hold on while I get my credit card, give them a fake credit card number and expiration date. Sometimes I will make them hold while I pretend that there is someone at the door. They will usually ask me to give them the 1-800 customer service number on the back of the credit card so that they can call to verify my balance. I give them either the toll-free number for the FCC or the FBI, or a 1-800 sex line ("are you ready for NASTY sex talk?"
that I found on the internet. They are then all excited because they think they have a mark, then they put me on hold while they call the number. Then when they come back I mute the phone and just listen to their reaction, which ranges between fury and wry amusement.
Then I fill out the form online to report the call to the FCC (which does not seem to have much effect but at least makes the FCC aware of the extent of this problem).
I would love to get a fake tech support call for my computer. I would *so* mess with them.
...so what if you have to add a new math co-processor, it's worth it!
We used punched cards and JCL.
In case you didn't know, Fortran still rocks, especially in parallel processing applications.
