"Mark Goodge" wrote in message
house.net...
On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:51:23 -0000, Iain put finger to keyboard and
typed:

One must not forget also the elderly and vulnerable who DO need
protecting.

Indeed. I'm not justifying it, merely explaining it. It's all too easy
for those of us with at least half a brain to think that no-one would
be stupid enough to fall for these things. But people do, and enough
of them do for it to be worthwhile creating businesses that rely on
them doing it.

I have a recording of the final 6+ minutes of a telephone scam of an indian
sounding gentleman who was trying to pursuade me that he was an MS
contractor who had been instructed by MS to link into my computer and
correct a 'problem'. Most of it was quite believable, but then some issues
on Data Protection cropped up. Then, when he finally asked me what
operating system I was using (despite having information from MS!), it just
confirmed the scam.

Who does not get the occasional program crash? Those who use BT also are
aware of the system they use to authorise someone to link in to a computer.
He was extremely convincing. I would hate to think the very high percentage
success rate that he was achieving.

The first sight I had of the Nigerian-419 scam was in the mid-80s. That was
received by fax. I checked it out with the company auditors who confirmed
it was a scam. Its success can be seen in that it is still very much
around.

Iain