[SWLUG] Scam phone calls

[Neil Jones]

This one will amuse you, I hope.
I as at my parents' place recently. My father has a windows machine 
which I help him with occasionally. He has a phone extension next to it.
I was sitting there actually preparing to run a virus scan on the 
machine when the phone rang. I didn't answer of course as it would be 
for my parents who were downstairs.

A matter of seconds later my mother shouts up to me "Pick up the phone". 
This wouldn't be that unusual. Someone from the family , a friend  
perhaps? But no it wasn't. It was someone with an Indian accent spouting 
technobabble about malware.
Of course I immediately knew what it was. Some scammer trying to get 
access to my father's computer. I took over the conversation. I asked a 
few questions, which he actually had difficulty answering,  He wanted me 
to alter the Windows registry. At which point I confronted him. saying 
loudly. that I was an expert on computers and knew what he was doing and 
that he was a nasty, cheating scammer.