The phone rang this afternoon and Mrs FE answered it. A few minutes later Mrs FE poked her head round the door of the office and handed the phone to me with a concerned look on her face.
On taking it from her I wondered if the call was from the police, re-payment of PPI, I’d won the lottery, of from one of the kids.
But no, this was the man from Microsoft who proceeded to tell me that they had been monitoring my computer and that it had multiple problems. The conversation goes something like this:
Microsoft engineer (MSE)
“We have been monitoring your computer and can see that it has many problems” (not an American or British accent).
Filthy Engineer (FE)
“Oh dear what can I do?” (Attempting to purvey a note of worry in my voice).
MSE
“You need to follow my instructions”
FE
“OK”
MSE
“Can you see a logo of MS on the left of the screen?”
FE
“What does it look like?”
MSE
“It looks like a flag with four colours in a circle.
FE
“All I can see is the date and time.”
MSE
“The LEFT hand side of the screen”.
FE
“Sorry. I see it now, what should I do?”
MSE
“Click on it”
FE
“OK” (click)
MSE
“Do you see a menu?”
FE
(Short pause to light up a ciggie and add a bit of tension to the unfolding drama) “Yes”
MSE
“Can you see a small box under the phrase “All programs”?”
FE
“Yes”
MSE
“I want you to type in m.s.c.o.n.f.i.g.”
FE
(After pretending to misspell it several times I finally affirmed that I had typed it in).
MSE
“Press enter and tell me what you see?”
FE
“A box with Msconfig in it”
MSE
“just click on it”
FE
“I’ve done that
MSE
“What do you see?”
FE
“Program not responding.”
(This is what was actually up on my screen and what he was expecting)
MSE
Silence for a few seconds
“I think we need to start again by rebooting your computer”
FE
“How do I do that?”
As most astute readers will know this is a scam to catch the unwary and deliver a trojan into your computer which will give you the idea that your machine is inflicted with all manner of nasties. What they will then do is sell useless software that purports to save your computer from eternal damnation..
I enjoyed every minute of the time on the phone with him. We must have jointly started the computer at least 8 times whilst trying to rectify the faults. Such as: “It’s loading updates from your company”, “the mouse isn’t working”, “how do you spell mscongig again?”.
Oh please let a Nigerian 419 scammer phone me.
