oooh I get them ALL the time!  I love winding them up  I think it's just guess work, either that or they're able to find out some how that you have broadband so put 2 + 2 together.  

I got one last week and she said to me that my pc was downloading viruses...I told her if she knew that kind of info she must be able to hack into my pc (I'd read either some one on here or on FB used the excuse before) , so i asked for her details so I could report her illlegal activities to the police.  She stuttered and said 'well if you don't want to protect your pc that's up to you'.  I said I do want to protect it, from people like you hacking into it...and she hung up  

There's nothing you can do unfortunately, because they're calling from a private number, so there's no way to trace them.  Just warn peeps that you know so they know not to fall for it too.

I get these all the time too. .I keep em chatting so they are not bothering some poor IT illiterate sod who gets conned. .

I usually then tell em I am reporting them to the police for hacking my puter, or I have no computer or I have a degree in Computer Science.....   next time I am going to tell them I am a professional computer hacker and work in the office next to them..  I like messing them around, tis fun..

. .in each case, after keeping them chatting for 15 mins or more, they then start swearing at me for wasting their time and the last one decided he was going to call on me and do unmentionables with his 9 inches [of what I have no idea ] but it involved my orifices. .I laughed and said you wish you had 9 inches. .he slammed the phone down on me..

they also have very very strong foreign accents and introduce themselves as John Smith or some such non foreign sounding same too

Love all of these

Never had one of these calls but I too would be tempted to go along along with it just so they waste their time and money.

I'm gonna use the 'I don't have a computer' next time

i did that one ............the woman got very nasty and told me 'You should have told me that in the first place' before hanging up.

i got another one last week and said 'can I just ask you a question?' he said 'Of Course' ........................i then asked if he enjoyed his job, ringing people up and attempting to scam them. He hung up PDQ.

Ohhh so I did alright?   I shall try some of the other ideas if it happens again.

But did you manage to get his number before he hung up? 

Did you tell him that you had information to suggest that it may be infected?  

nah I did try but I suspect he was bluffing about the inches hence slamming the phone down on me..

Blizzie

*jots that one in the book for next time *

I've had one before too. They said "Your PC is currently downloading a virus" to which I replied "I don't have a PC, I have a Apple MAC"

There was about 5 seconds of silence, then they hung up

I think I like the 'you must have hacked into my PC to know that' the best

She was probably flitting through the manual to find an appropriate response

that was meeeee too

look at me multiquoting

I just say.... well that's very, very  strange, cos I have a Mac and don't use Windows

In the states we have a law against phone solicitation: you can either put yourself on a "no-call" list, or you say, "I'm not interested, please take me off your list", and they aren't SUPPOSED to call again. Do you not have the equivalent?

What would happen if you started the call by asking for their name, telephone number, and employer?

We do have that...its called the telephone preference service....but it doesn't work if companies are calling from overseas....

I'm signed up but still get the odd unsolicited call....but once in a blue moon instead of 5/6 a day that I was getting before.  The last time I asked why he was calling and he started his spiel...I repeated...'why are you calling me when i am signed up to the telephone preference service?

I got a quick sorry and the phone was put down.  I've not had any about computers and virus' though.

You can do that in the UK - it is called Telephone Preference service. I used to have it at my old house and am going to register my new number.

http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/tps/

Lori we have a similar system here where you can register with the Telephone Preference Service and you're not supposed to get 'cold calls' which is the colloquial term here.

Most of the companies that do this, get around it by using overseas call centres usually in India.  The government insist they can't do anything about that  so the best we can do is mess them around ourselves 

We also use "cold calls"...probably borrowed from you.

Well, at least you can have the entertainment of dealing with them. Small consolation, though, huh?

Last time I had one, he said my computer was infected, I said in a shocked voice "What, all 27 of them"? He said "27" 

I replied "Yes, you do know this is a Police Station"? 

He put the phone down 

LOL Dame    I had one that said we believe your computer may be infected. I replied with.........who told you that, and they rang off 

As other have posted we do have the equivalent.

But the people ringing up about people's computers being infected are foreign criminals who ignore the law. The Guardian newspaper investigated them last year and tracked them down to call centres in Kolkata (Calcutta). They are run by a man who lives in Kota in Rajasthan. People who fall victim to the scam are advised to log on to Logmein and so the criminals get access to their computers. Logmein is an honest company and is frequently used by software companies to help them access customers' computers to sort out problems customers have.

One the criminals gain access to the victims' computers they can do anything such as planting trojan viruses or looking at passwords stored on the computer. They pretend to run a scan on the computer which results in false messages saying that the computer is infected with viruses. They then sell the victims anti virus software (which isn't and is probably a program loaded with viruses). Of course the victim has to pay for the "anti-virus software" so gives the criminals their credit card or debit card details.If the victim pays by debit card, they have little chance of getting their money back.

Various payment organisations such as Paypal try to take action against them, but when one site is closed down another opens.

Yes, we have the equivalent over here.  But these guys don't have a number to trace and don't hang around to give you details, so there's no one to report unfortunately.

Over here, if you have a number, the Communications Regulator (our version of Ofcom)  fine the callers, if you've asked to be taken off the list and they ring you again.  They really do take it seriously.  We had an american company that kept ringing our office, we have caller id and the number came up.  So I rang back and when the other person picked up, they said the name of the company, so I then had the name and number of who called me.  I told them to take our name off their call list, again I got a call.  So I reported them.  Turns out it wasn't just our office they were hounding every office I knew   They got a fine and that was the end of them, it went from getting 3-4 calls a week (even after our request to be removed from their call list), to never hearing from them again once Comm Reg got involved