Topic: How to deal with telemarketers

[Kaiaatzl]

Yes, that one was based on Dilbert  .

And welcome.

[Crash]

Just tell them the person's dead.
You could always add that you're investigating the death and ask what the nature of the caller's relationship with the deceased was.

[Kaiaatzl]

I like that actually.  That's one I definitely want to try.

[Crash]

Spins 'em round every time.

[Kaiaatzl]

It's like the Alcoholics Anonymous one.

[Crash]

How does it go? I'm longing for some variation!

[Kaiaatzl]

They call you to sell beer and you say "Sir (madam) this is Alcoholics Anonymous!"
I call it the 'worst wrong number ever' and it's #10 in the OP.

[Crash]

Wow, is this in the US. that they do this? Sell you alchohol down the phone ...

With us it's mostly ... topical scams or things to exploit like "have you taken out a personal loan in the last 5 years? If so you might have been missold it, blah blah.". Either that or they try and get you to change your gas or phone provider.

A couple of months back we had a good scam where someone rang up claiming to be from Microsoft, telling us that they figured we had a virus of somekind and the idea was to make us download something malicious and then charge us to undo it.
It got passed over to me and he didn't get very far. He tried telling me that every yellow or red entry in the Windows Event-viewer was a virus. That was a non-starter.

[Kaiaatzl]

I've never had anyone actually try to sell me alcohol on the phone, but I can see it happening.

And I'm not in the US.  That's all I'm going to say.
I get telemarketers from there though, so I guess I still count .

It got passed over to me and he didn't get very far. He tried telling me that every yellow or red entry in the Windows Event-viewer was a virus. That was a non-starter.

Obviously he didn't know who you are.

[Matthew]

I never understood how these people can sell their malicious "antiviruses" on fricking TV. False advertising laws please?

[Crash]

Well, the guy was shady too. I thought how likely is it that Microsoft would be contacting me to solve my computing problem?

Event viewer is pretty good and clear (if you go in and explore in your own time rather than being told to go there under false pretence) that what you're looking at are just events, not viruses. It just takes a little to be able to say "just because you have a couple of reds and yellows in no way means that anything's wrong with the PC". The PC just logs every thing that solves itself as such an entry. Every time you close a non-responsive propgram it winds up as a red entry as well.

Malicious AVs On TV? I guess your advertising restrictions must be a lot more liberal although loan sharks, supposed credit management agencies have always got on here.

I think in the UK, the only time I've ever seen even real antiviruses advertised is when a retailer like PC world advertises its products and prices.
It's like "have a printer that's probably 20 years old and guzzles ink cartridges, assuming you can still find them for the amazing price of £10,000! And seeing as we had to pay for a 30-second advert, here's Norton Antivirus. It can slow down up to three home computers and nags you every 5 minutes just to make the whole thing seem worthwhile. Now a bargain at only £500!!!"
Norton isn't that bad nowadays, still probably wouldn't use it though but that's what PC World is like here. They must make fortune flogging yesterday's crap to grandmas and small businesses.

[VANGUARD]

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-12-07/

thanks I guess I screwed up part of the comic when talking about it
been a while since I saw that, but I remembered the punchline. and yeah, they are funny.

[Scyphi]

The most frequent telemarketing calls I hear in the US revolve around credit card accounts, banking accounts, the economy, and polls for things no body cares about or worse, politics.

Can't say I've ever heard of telemarketers trying to sell something like alcohol over the phone these days. That seems to be more the TV's job. x2

I do remember getting one telemarketing call that talked about me getting free gasoline or something. Admittedly a little intrigued and wondering if this was for real, I expressed interest, just to see where I ended up. Didn't really end up anywhere, though, just got rerouted to several different operators who were telling me seemingly conflicting statements that were just confusing me, so I eventually just hung up.

Malicious AVs On TV? I guess your advertising restrictions must be a lot more liberal...

In the US, I believe they aren't legal at all, it's just when a "business" initially starts advertising, there's no real guarantee whether or not they're legit or not until they actually start getting some customers. So it's still possible to false advertise and get away with...until people get wise of you and you get caught. x3

More frequently, I see stuff more along the lines of being "half-false," as in leading you to believe one thing when it's really another thing with discreet catches attach that were technically there in the fine print but you had missed. Technically that's unfortunately legal, because they still give you the whole truth about what they're doing and selling, so technically nothing is false. They just gear it up in such a way that they get onlookers to overlook the catches and just on the seemingly "good deal" stuff. Businesses probably do it more than I'd like to admit. x4

[Matthew]

I suppose they may not be explicitly malicious, but you won't find me using any of them. "O NOES MAH EMAIL TAKES 4 SECONDS TO LOAD, I HAZ A VIRUS MY COMPUTER IS BEING PERMANENTLY DAMAGED HALP ME HALP ME!" 

[Crash]

I don't really get the whole sticking-tongues-out-smiley things - especially now that we're applying mathematics to them.