kbarnes42 Loc: North Carolina

I have received many of the calls that I now recognize the number. I usually answer FBI regional office, may I help you. That usually gets a hang up from them.

mymike Loc: Tucson, AZ

Yep happened to me and same thing, same scenario. CAlled my son and he looked it up and told me to hang up.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

It's a scam--I get one of these calls every week.

Jmhhug Loc: New York

I received a similar call on my home phone saying my computer was sending error messages. I have not registered my computer with my home phone number! Once they get in they can hijack your computer & lock your files or install malware.

phlash46 Loc: Westchester County, New York

Had the same thing except I have a Mac. he's a thief and anyone associated with him is the thief. Tell him that and hang up. You may throw in some choice expletives if you're of a mind.

blackest Loc: Ireland

Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with an operating system that is going wrong so much? It really doesn't have to be that way.

There are 2 pretty good alternatives OSX and Linux neither of which makes you wait around while it installs 'updates'. There are updates released of course but you get the choice when and if you want to install them and they don't slow you down.

Sometimes it is genuine malware that is slowing your system down but often it is windows doing its thing of downloading and installing updates to the operating system that is slowing your computer down.

For example I was brought a laptop to fix that basically had it's cpu so maxed out you couldn't launch a program for at least 15minutes. In the end all i could do with it was boot linux on it from a dvd and backup all his data. I then restored it to as new, avoided adding in all the trialware that is included essentially to subsidize the cost of windows for the manufacturer. I updated windows through all the updates released since the laptop was new. Around 4 weeks later there are 34 updates waiting to be installed and 3/4 of an hour later its on update 29 of 34... and still not ready to shutdown does that sound familiar?

When I repaired this laptop I installed Linux Mint alongside basically i split the hard drive into two partitions similar to spliting your hard drive to C: and D: only instead of D: it has Linux which Windows doesn't see (without 3rd party drivers). So when you start this laptop you get a choice of running Linux or Windows (there is a 5 second delay before it defaults to windows).

Thing is the linux desktop is ready to use in less than a minute, the very same browser chrome is there on the taskbar waiting to be launched as is skype so they can talk and see their grandkids. Mostly the webbrowser is used for looking at cars on donedeal and his wife plays a game or two of solitaire.

Thing is there are no slow downs everything is responsive and when you want to shut it down , you can!

It is not the hardware that is a problem but the software, the operating system running on it.

There is no Photoshop or Lightroom although there are free alternatives which can do a fair amount of the same operations. The difference is nobody gets paid to develop for the gimp so its a side line for most of its developers. It's something they are interested in, rather like photography for most of us.

Nobody pays for the Gimp so there are no full time developers. Creative cloud has at least 3.4 million subscribers at $100 a year subscription (for ease of numbers) thats a gross income of 340 Million so you should expect rapid development and to be fair photoshop and lightroom are pretty mature products and so they should be with that kind of funding.

Then there is OSX which like linux is built on a unix base but unlike linux has a massive amount of funding behind it. The money you pay apple today go into the products you buy tomorrow. There is of course photoshop and lightroom and more plus a lot of the same programs that are available for free in linux are also there for OSX. The cheapest mac is a rather under powered base mac mini, your going to pay at least $1000 for a mac laptop. So realistically you do shell out more cash on a mac initially but there is the advantage it works and keeps on working unlike beep beep windows!

These scam artists are pretty much a consequence of running a broken operating system, after all if it worked properly there wouldnt be millions of frustrated users wanting their computers to be fixed. just a thought.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

The Do Not Call registry doesn't seem very effective.

wiselee Loc: Henderson,NV.

The guy is dumber than a post, he has called here at least 20 times over the past several years. You tell him you don't use Windows and he keeps calling back. You can be rude and tell him off and he still calls again.

Microsoft will NEVER call you about a Windows problem!

LoisCroft Loc: Jonesborough, Tennessee

I have had several calls like this most often a bunch over a few days, then nothing for a bit, usually just after ordering something on line. I always give my house phone when placing an order and this is the line they use to call.

Usually I just hang up. The give-away is that they give instructions for a Windows computer and I have a Mac. I have to admit I teased the guy too for a bit, telling him I was old and had a hard time finding they keys he was talking about. He patiently told me where to locate them on the keyboard. Once I got bored, I hung up and didn't answer when he called back.

Goes to show you though how your information is shared.

Marilyng Loc: Lorain,Oh.

Wow I had the same call a few months back.I was very polite & listened to his entire BS & then asked the gentleman how he knew I had a computer & his reply was "oh Microsoft knows all of this information".I then replied gee I have a Mac does Microsoft have a list of those to.To that reply he hung up,just to funny that some people really believe this stuff!

Jerry Kos Loc: Milwaukee, Wi

You are really good at this stuff.
:thumbup: :thumbup:

Bazbo Loc: Lisboa, Portugal

I got the same call. Since I have no windows products I told him of f**k off.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

When they ask for me by name, I say that the family is away for a few months, and I'm watching the house for them while they're gone.

JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

Have received this scam (and others) several times. I used to just hang up on them, but decided that they deserved some "blow back".

They generally use a computer to call three or four different numbers at once, and when you answer your phone, you have to wait for them. That's a good time to hang up, but I decided they were wasting too much of my time. As soon as they start to speak, I interrupt them. When they stop yapping, I tell them that my time is undoubtedly worth more than theirs; that I resent their wasting my time to their advantage, and even if they were not crooks pushing a scam, I wouldn't deal with them. Then hang up.

I doubt it slows them down but makes me feel a bit better :). I've been tempted to give them a blast from an air horn, but don't want to risk blowing out the phone mike.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I wonder what they would say if you told them you were running Unix.