Mystery Solved in 2.1 seconds... "Tech Support" #scam phone calls still happening...

It's a Friday morning of a long weekend.  Sunny Los Angeles is in a dense fog.

No one's working. Or ARE they? 

The landline phone rings.

The landline?  Shit. That's never good news.  Scenes from "Dial M for Murder" drift through my head.

Me:  Hello?  

Other side of the phone says: ------nothing.  

I wait b/c that pause, that deafening silence can mean only one thing. Well, it can actually mean 2 things.. but it mostly means one thing - it's a telemarketer - who IS actually working on a dark, foggy Friday morning of a long weekend. I stand corrected.

I wait ... and I wait ... as I knows it's dangerous for me to say "hello" a second time. I could blow my cover. So I just wait. 

And the telemarketer speaks.  International accent. (Wow. There's a surprise)

Telemarketer: Hello? 

Now it's my turn to say ----- nothing. 

Telemarketer: Is anyone there?

Me:  I'm mostly here - if you ignore the physics of it all. What do you want? 

Telemarketer:  I'm calling from Windows technical support about the report you sent to ....

I think, wow! The scam's been all over the newspaper and the internet and the news and they're still making these calls.  What a fun!

Me: Ha, ha... good one.  Microsoft doesn't work like that.  You're all over the news and the internet.  Everyone also knows you're a scam.  Go get a different job!

Telemarketer: Click!

So, if in some foggy dream you think any 21st century tech support service might actually be pro-active and call you b/c the psychic told them you're having issues w/your computer, please wake up. The scam is still running.

The 411 directly from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/online-privacy/avoid-phone-scams.aspx