to think that this is a potential scam

[bigbluebus]

Just received phone call on an 'unavailable' number from person who said his name was Andy Ball or Bell from MSI asking for Mrs Bigbluebus.
Said he was ringing about an error message on my computer - so I asked him which computer. He replied "the one registered in the name of Mrs Bigbluebus". I asked him what type of computer it was and he said "it could be a desk top or a laptop - its the one with the windows operating system".
Now I consider myself to be incredibly naive where computers are concerned but it sounded to me like he was fishing or (phishing) for information and that he knew absolutely nothing about me and my computer other than my name and phone number - so I'm afraid I was rather blunt with him and told him that if I had a problem with my computer then I would contact the appropriate people to get it sorted - at which point he cut the call off.

Was I right to be suspicious and think that this was some sort of scam in the making or have I just offended some poor call centre operator who was genuinely trying to help me?

I said: Gosh, you know what files are on my computer? Oooh, that IS clever! You're from Microsoft, you say? Well, what fantastic personal service! Thank you! You want me to give you remote access? Oh dear, I don't know how to do that, can I find the instructions on your website? Microsoft Dot Com, yes? No, it's fine, don't take your time talking me through it, I'll just look it up on Microsoft Dot Com later. While you're here, can you help me with how to set up Office 2010? See, I've got this far but I'm not sure how to ....

He hung up.

Garlic!

All that is required is a two word response - "fuck" and "off". Thieving cheating bastards.

ive had loads of international calls lately, luckily ive missed them they seem to phone at school run time but if its these guys i'll be using the pombear operating system line for sure bloody awful that they are doing the rounds tho, its really horrible the ways ppl will try to get money out of folk for nothing

We've had loads of these. I thought they were a scam as they call me Mrs Husband'ssurname, and the guy had a very strong Indian accent despite being called 'John Smith'. I hung up and he called back, then my husband told him to fuck off.

They keep calling, and we keep telling them it's a scam and to fuck off to the far side of fuck and keep fucking off.

We had that they could tell our computer had picked up a virus.
Dh works with computers and told them that was impossible and why. He was quite long winded and I'm sure the chap on the other end understood very little.

We've had a load of these, but don't seem to have had any for the past few weeks.

I'll be rather disappointed if we don't get any more, I'd love the chance to try out at least some of these responses. So far I've settled for a rather puzzled querying tone along the lines of 'are you sure'? I have had one or two hang up on me. I knew it had to be some kind of blind calling because I have a Mac. :-)

I've never had one of these calls - we are registered with TPS but do get an odd cold call from foreign parts.

I feel oddly neglected

Please don't go round telling everyone when you have a Mac when you don't.....the ba**ards will start making virus' for Macs!

Just so as we're all clear on this... I have had this from my computer geek expert DP: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for some random people ringing you to know whether or not your computer has any kind of virus or problem. Just impossible. Do not give them the time of day. When I had one of these calls, I told the bloke that that was funny, because we didn't own a computer (evil grin). Total lies, but it made me laugh afterwards