Someone Tried to Scam Me!
In last couple of days, I received 3 calls. All of them claimed to be from “HP Technical Support”, but later I found they were not. With each call, things got more fishy but funny. It’s kind of those scenarios, when you knew the other person is trying to scam you but you get along and wait for the “gotcha” moment or sometimes… just to have more fun. Here it goes…
Caller 1 –
According to the caller, My laptop is infected with a malware and no longer accepts updates from HP. He asked me to turn on the laptop and open “Event Viewer” program. Initially, I got little worried, but was also kind of skeptical about the call. First, It is unlikely to get a call from an HP technical support person without any prior complaint. Second, even if you call HP support, there is usually a waiting time until you talk to a person. Anyway, I told him I am not sure about his identity. He said, Thanks and ended the call.
Caller 2 –
This time, the caller said one of the HP server has been crashed and to update my laptop; they want to connect the laptop to a different server. Also, due to the crash, they will refund some money. This time, I got him right there! It was the most stupid thing I have ever heard. I asked him, are you guys calling all the HP customers? He said “Yes”. Can you imagine, HP support guys are calling each and every customer around the globe and troubleshooting this issue??? Ridiculous! That annoyed me and I told him directly that you’re a scam and ended the call.
* Both of the above calls were from India. Now the most fun call…
Caller 3 –
Third caller had a better accent than the previous two. He said the same thing as the first caller (Malware Story). On asking, he told me that his name is Peter, calling from Georgia and his contact # is 1-800-478-9569 (I looked up this number online and it belongs to some Cosmosys Technology. May be scammers are using their phone #). Then, I told him about the earlier calls. As I was telling him about that, he hung up the phone. May be there is a rule that one person cannot be scammed twice the same way. I don’t know, but that was totally unexpected. I was sure that the contact number was fake but anyhow I tried and luckily the same guy answered. I asked him why did you hung up on me? He said, this is your first call. I was like “WHAT !! “. I asked his name. This time he said “Alex”. I was shocked. I said your name was Peter few minutes ago and now Alex?? He said nothing. May be it’s his first day as a scam engineer and forgot to keep the track of his name. After a pause of a second or two, I asked him to carry on what he was telling me about my laptop (It was a trick question). In reply, he started with the same story; though I caught him again. I argued, “if you didn’t talk to me earlier, how do you know who I am? I didn’t even tell you my name and how do you know I even have an HP laptop?”. Before he came up with a lame explanation, I burst him with a question, “what was your name again?”. This time he said Chris. 😀
So, from Peter to Alex to Chris in few minutes. Definitely, the worst scammer award goes to the 3rd caller.
