My Facebook contacts may already be aware of a phone call I had today but there is no harm in making a more permanent record of it.
I had a call from someone with a heavy Asian accent who gave his name as Edward. Sorry, even if an Edward had an Asian background, I am sure their accent would not have been as heavy. Irrespective of who they are, or where they are calling from, any attempt at getting on a personal level really winds me up. “Hello Paul, how have you been today?” may get me going on a recap of inane things that had happened during the day and an attempt to draw the same out of them. We may then go on to talk about how nice it is to have a conversation with someone who is not trying to sell anything. I haven’t worked out whether this happens when I have had a good day or a bad day. Usually I quote the telephone preference service and hang up.
Anyway, to get back to today’s call. According to Edward, Windows computers in Shipley are at risk of being infected with all sorts of nasties and their R & D department had identified mine as being in danger. What’s more he could prove it. Up until then my morning had been quite pleasant – I had tweeted about the selection of birds I had seen as I drank my coffee. I didn’t attempt to have a “pleasant” conversation with him. I told him that he was deliberately lying, not just mistaken, and that I believed his company was committing a crime. I would have carried on a bit longer but he was very rude and hung up on me. So there I was, in a reasonable mood prior to the call, not responding with a pleasant “string along” conversation nor saying “Go away.” and hanging up. It looks as though I need to make a few more records of my responses before I can say good mood or bad leads to a particular type of response. However I do know that at meal times my response tends to be quite abrupt.
After the call I Googled “Quick Resolve” and came across this Coras blog page, this saves me the bother of going into more detail about how the conversation could have gone if I had been in a gullible mood – aka stupid for someone who works in IT.
I am afraid you are pretty much on your own when it comes to protecting your computer. No one else is going to do it for you. Properly installed software, up to date browsers (preferably Firefox or Chrome) and common sense is what is needed. You could possibly hear from your ISP if something very unusual was going on. Other people might let you know that your emails included viruses. But, apart from that, anything else that is happening on your computer is your responsibility.
Wouldn’t it be nice if people were looking out for you in a nice way though. Just think, if someone with a bit more knowledge could have phoned me up about the noise my car was making, if they had then that holiday in France might not have been so expensive when the engine finally gave up. But if someone had called I wonder what I would have said? Good mood? Bad mood? String them along with idle pleasantries until they gave up, or “P**s off you money grabber”?
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