Unsolicited 'Technical Support' Telephone call, 2015/01/20.

Another one 'bytes' the dust. This one was less interesting because I was currently offline (only returned to computer short bit prior and the cat had loosened the cable and I didn't know it then) and I was fairly distracted too. Still, I was able to get myself to not hang up on him and rather waste his time. So while this won't be so amusing as it could be (definitely I've had far more amusing instances), it is something. I should say rather, the actual conversation itself was not all that amusing: I let him continue while subtly suggesting I was following him (actually I was only barely understanding his gibberish - it was just enough to get the gist of it all). Of course I was giving that suggestion because I was wasting his time (as is deserved). My commentary below, however, might be fairly amusing (depending on your type of humour, of course). So here is how it went:

• I get a call from someone with a horrible accent; it was so bad that he could not come close to pronouncing my name correctly. It is a fairly common name, I might add! I knew that it must have been another idiot trying to scam me (to be fair, I knew that even if he wasn't trying to scam, he was still an idiot!).
• He asks me to speak with the primary user. Seeing as how I wanted to abuse him (instead of him abusing others), I defaulted to being 'the primary user'. I tell him he is speaking to them.
• He starts to tell me that there's bad activity they're detecting from my computer - worse than malware because it is online (who knew? Did someone install a floppy drive in my computer again? I didn't leave any disks in any external drive - not even the ones that don't exist here! How did the MBR/BS infecters get me?!).
• Some where in between the two parts above, the bad activity and elaborating that it is worse than malware - remember, it is worse because it is online! - he tells me that it is all over the states (and he points out that he's talking about states): Arizona, Nevada, San Francisco, California, Boston. Wait! What?! That's an interesting set of states! Several states and then cities in a pseudo-random order. I think that he needs to learn how to read a map; perhaps he'd manage to do that IF he wasn't so busy trying to scam others out of money (and causing problems for their computers AND others computers including network resources: every single damned day I see crap hitting my server because of insecure computers!)?
• He tells me to not worry - that since I am a licensed user of Windows (am I? Which version was I running? I'll need a bit of help figuring THAT out! Would someone remind me when I paid for it? Licensing can cost a lot of money so I'll need to check my limited funds!) they'll gladly help out.
• At some point he asks me how old my computer is. I'm honest here: I recently upgraded my computer from first generation Intel i7 920 (low end) to fourth generation Intel i7 4970K (high end). I didn't elaborate but I tell him less than a year (it does make it even more easy to convince him I'm still ignorant). He also asks me what I use it for, as if that somehow makes his claims more valid. Among things he asks me about Youtube, Facebook and other sites I have no interest in: while I do sometimes look at Youtube, I have actually (more than once and I make no apologies here) ignored friends' links to videos on Youtube; I really hate videos. Then there's Facebook. As far as I am concerned, it doesn't deserve any attention and therefore that is all I will say on it. To that end, I casually tell him 'various things' is what I do (I imagine he felt far more enlightened by this).
• And now the real fun: he asks me if I'm at the computer to which I confirm. He then asks me to look over (here we go again!) to the bottom left of the keyboard and find the key that is C T R L (he spells it out again) and elaborates 'the control key' (to which I slightly mock him over, something he doesn't even pick up on).
• You think the last bozo was idiotic? This one wins: he asks me to look to the right and tell him what I see. I tell him 'ALT' (maybe I should have spelt it out for him?). To this he continues!
• "What kind of computer do you have? Is this a Macintosh or a Windows PC?" I respond: "Neither. You know there is far more out there, than Apple and Microsoft." It is most amusing that he actually continued. But he does.
• He then starts remarking on the ALT key again. I didn't quite follow it. Shortly after, however, he goes onward. I'm not clear about this, at least not 100%, so I'll give both possibilities (has to do with me being smart - perhaps the only accurate thing he said the whole time! - and likely wasting his time (because I called him, yes?)): "You're smart enough ..." or more likely "You think you're smart do you? (repeats this more than once as I ask him several times 'what about me?' - I didn't quite understand him but I wanted to!) Get off the phone!" and he then hangs up. No, idiot; I don't think I'm smart: I KNOW I am smart and I know you are a complete fool and it was a much needed thing for me, what with the amount of negative activity that is coming from my... ehm, brain ? lately