If I could be so bold… I have made similar videos. I am very proud of them. I am actually upset that they have stopped calling me. How can I get back on their lists? 
You know what’s worse than being on a call with a stranger? Watching a call between two strangers.
The one pretending to be peeing is awesome, I’m going to use that one!
Frankly, I find this baffling.
“Not interested, thank you. Goodbye.” Five words, three seconds.
What’s baffling is that so many seem to have nothing preferable to do with these small bits of their life.
I’ve always been curious as to what those “Microsoft technical support” scammers actually do, I’ve gotten (and my mother and grandmother have gotten) so many of those calls. I’ve never had the patience, but my mother has tried stringing them along, although she gets tired of it before they get anywhere. Given how unnecessarily convoluted the process is, I can see why she didn’t get very far.
These aren’t telemarketers, these are con-men trying to rip off various sums of money under false pretenses. Wasting their time means it’s time not spent actually stealing from someone more credulous.
Statement of false incredulity.
Sarcastic reductio ad absurdum summary of an activity that is not part of my daily experience and therefore confounds and offends me.
Self-aggrandizing proclamation absolutely basking in false incredulity, assuming this is the sole daily activity of a hypothetical group of inferiors.
(And won’t somebody please think of the children!)
2nd one from the bottom is actually pretty good tv.
I’ve heard tell that the MS Support Scammers will basically try to get you to send them a remote support session key, which they will then use to install a VNC client or some such on your system so they can login to your machine and pwn all your data and/or cryptolock it and demand some hundreds of dollars for the unlock key.
I agree - I laughed so hard I farted. The argument with the fake wife is excellent.
I’m sure there’s more end-games than just these, but the most common three are (and you may cop all three from the same scammer):
Phishing personal details for identity theft, on-selling &/or getting into your accounts.
Making your machine part of their botnet for naughty doings (like launching DDOS attacks)
Crpyto-locking your stuff and demanding a ransom for the decryption keys.
I asked one what company he worked for. “Windows”, he replied.
I’d like to know how these folks rationalize doing this. Might they be indentured servants of some sort?
There’s 1.25 billion people in India, they need to earn money somehow.
My guess is that they’re told by whichever shady employer that they need to do XYZ to earn their commission or avoid losing their income. The bosses are the shady ones in this case, and some part of me feels bad for these lowly assholes on the phone.
Oh man. I gotta try this.
Back when I was less busy at work, I led some of the Nigerian scammers on a merry chase for about 6 weeks, ending the game by getting them to click on a link to some gay porn. (They were SO MAD, ha ha)
Far less skillful than this guy, who is the gold standard by which all scambaiters must be measured against:
This.
My impression of the time I spent India is that it’s a crazy dogpile of people trying to claw their way up the ladder.
Employee turnover is much higher, even in good paying jobs (inflation being a factor).
The poor seem much, much poorer than our poor. I mean, our poor that sleep on the streets are addicts or mental health patients, or live in/near San Francisco (I dunno why on this last count; the weather? the social programs? The hippies? I saw a shanty town of actually very nice tents along a creek next to a super target once in San Jose…) Their completely destitute like as not were born to it, and will die in it, with never an option to claw their way out.
I had a coworker make friends while there with his cab driver, who was an Untouchable. Although the caste system was outlawed some time back, people still know. The surnames, the ethnic markers, etc. He insisted, insisted, on bringing the guy into a nice place where our Indian counterparts were having dinner. They made a big stink about it, the waiters made a stink, but ultimately nobody wants to tick off the business traveler, so they let him in for dinner. He said it was the best day of his life.
This is a country that is just conquering Polio in the last few years, which our Amish populations conquered almost 40 years ago.
I have little doubt that the scammers here feel like us Americans can easily bear to be separated from some of our money. In the scheme of things, they’re not entirely wrong.
It bears saying…
If you’re going to fuck with scammers, do what video #2 did: use a VM through VMWare Player or Virtual Box that you can snapshot and delete easily. DO NOT use your real computer!
They hit you with a huge bill. I’ve seen quotes of from $250-$1000 left on clients computers.
Nothing that complex as far as I’ve seen they just invent problems and charge huge sums to repair them.
