I thought the delluge of tech support scam phone calls was over. I guess I was a little optimistic. I just had a hilarious call from a scammer who tried tried to tell me my Linux computer was sending out Windows error messages. He wanted to connect remotely and fix the problems for me. The guy didn’t seem to understand “Linux”, and asked me to click on my “start menu”. Hahahaha.
When confronted with the fact that he was a scamming scum-bag, the caller tried to prove that they were legitimate by giving me their web-site address: www.ceylon-tech.com (no link – please don’t go there unless you know what you are doing i.e. disable scripting/Java/Flash etc.) and an Australian free-call number. The scammer told me they had been doing legitimate technical support for years, but the domain was only registered in July 2012. A quick google finds a number of people who have been burned by these arseholes. It’s probably worth pointing out that Ceylon has not existed since 1972.
I spent quite a while asking this scammer how he got my number, to which he could only respond with some vague bullshit about “your number was in the error message sent by your computer”. I took much delight in pointing out that I am on the Do Not Call register and they were, therefore, in violation of The Do Not Call Register Act 2006.
Anyway, I had a great time, and my wife giggling in the background probably tipped him off, but to his credit he refused to hang up for a very long time, regardless of the increasingly acerbic recriminations levelled at him. He took great care to apologise and said they would never call me again. Right. I have of course reported this call to the ACCC and given the ceylon-tec web site the worst possible rating on Web Of Trust.
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