[darrelld]

A few months ago, I was on a linux VM with no ad blocker and I got one of those banner ads about my Windows PC being attacked.

Being interested and having nothing better to do on a Saturday night I clicked it, got told my system was infected and to call a number for help.

I called the 800 number, got onto a representative who then attempted to get me to install a piece of software. I played along as the dumb consumer who just really to keep the viruses and hackers off his computer.

2 hours later with multiple service escalations, attempts to install a .exe and a .msi to a Ubuntu install, reboots, running windows commands in my terminal, giving fake credit card numbers (the kind generated to make sure your system can handle all credit cards) and me just acting plain dumb ended with me being hung up on.

I figure the 2 hours that they burned on me was one less poor soul they hooked in.