If you own a Windows computer, you’re probably familiar with the fake pop up error messages, and phone calls from scammers who claim to be from Microsoft, and point that your computer is infected with a virus. While some have taken to YouTube to lash back at these scammers, one programmer is taking things to another level by fighting back with a bot army of his own (via TheNextWeb)
According to the report, Roger from The Jolly Roger Telephone Company wants to disrupt these scammers by spamming their support lines with calls from bots. Much to our humor, Roger’s bots are essentially designed to keep the support agent scammers on the line and waste their time with nonsense remarks. To the unsuspecting scammer, the bots sound very human, but in reality, are actually are just a set of pre-recorded tracks. In one example, the recorded bot tracks sound so suspecting to the scammers that they even feature background noise, and the caller talking back to someone in the room. The bots are apparently working, and here is how Roger describes his project:
This post is getting some traction on reddit (thanks reddit!), so I wanted to address a couple things. First, I love telecommunications and I vow to never use this technology for mischief or malice. I built these bots to handle INBOUND telemarketer scammers, but about 10 days ago I got a popup saying my computer was infected. I called it and confirmed it was “Microsoft Technical Department”. I called it a few more times from different caller-ids and got the same call center. So I pounded it into the ground. After about 300 calls, the number was disconnected.
Safe to say, in this case, the scammers are the ones that are now getting scammed. At the height of the era of these scam calls, Microsoft has previously come out and warned consumers. But, if you’re up for some fun, you can also head to Roger’s website to hear more of his calls. Once you’ve listened, let us know what you think by dropping us a comment below!
