Free = sell?

That doesn't enforce that they're a greedy company who wants your computer to break.

I would like to buy your cat.
That beast is awesome.

Kidding of course.

But where do all you people get these calls from? I have never had such a call here, or even heard of it.

Good link there Yacoby....

So I've been reading this thread with interest and just checked my email and got another one of the http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/02/04/outbreak-united-parcel-service-notification-malware-attack-spammed-out/ malware attack emails. :shakehead:
I get a couple of these every week. At least they now fall into the spam folder. At first they were in my inbox, and I thought it was suspicious the very first time, and never fell for it.

People do not realize that UPS emails don't look like this?

I don't even think UPS sends delivery emails, that's like the USPS sending you a mail confirming your grandma got her birthday card. They're just the messengers.

They do send delivery confirmations, though I imagine it's only for certain services; I've had a few legit ones lately, though admittedly nowhere near as many as the attempted scams.

I only get those from the site I ordered from (amazon, newegg), not UPS directly.

UPS have started sending me confirmations themselves, though it seems to be a fairly new thing, i.e. within perhaps the last six months or so.

That sort of settles it, plus all the other information.

My opinion, seriously, this guy is a scammer. Dont talk to him, EVAR.

Scam. No question.

next time play along then when your suppose to download and install something tell them it wont run because your using linux

What would be really brilliant was if you hooked up a cleverbot to a text-to-speech program and just put the phone next to a microphone.

They called back at some point yesterday, but I was out. I had every intention of screwing with him just like they would've done with me, but no one was here to answer it, and there's no voicemail.

Thanks to everyone for helping me out, I don't know much about that kind of stuff, so I just wanted to make sure it was a scam before I told off some Microsoft employee...

They'll probably be calling back today, I imagine they make a commission or something off of every person they get to do whatever they say, and I was kinda in-between. It was until I saw the program he wanted me to download when I was like "I'm not the owner of the computer, you'll have to call back later."

I feel bad for the people out there who don't know any better. I can only imagine computer illiterates freaking out cuz they think their PC's has some phony virus.

And I got to thinking, what if these guys called up someone who only owned a Mac or other Apple device? I know the majority of households have a MS PC, but I know a few people who own strictly Apple, and I'm sure there are plenty of others...so what do they do? "Oh, I work for Apple, too." or probably just hang up.

Even though hilarious, there are dangers of "scambaiting" (ie. using scammers' time for funny chores to keep him busy and off scamming more people). It might seem funny in the beginning to mess with them, but if they have your phone number already, DON'T. They likely can find your address just as easy.

Even if the person might be calling from a faraway land, most scammers have international connections and moneytransfer-people everywhere. So they might have some nephew's cousin at your nextdoor town, who might get pissed enough to visit you. It has happened, mostly in Europe, but also bigger towns in USA.

Just leave the number unanswered, and spread the awareness by telling your friends and family about what happened, or tip a local newspaper un-anonymously as the scammers might be browsing your local phone book (You don't want your name on an article that deals scamming, one thing the scammers hate even more than being messed with, is publicity).