I received a phone call today from someone claiming to be from Telstra. I nearly hung up before speaking to him, because he didn't respond to my first two hellos and it sounded like a noisy call centre. The only reason I stayed on the line was because I'd recently been sorting out some issues with our previous communications provider and I wondered if it was a follow up to that.
The caller had an Indian accent, which fit in as that's where most of our communications call centres are based. The conversation went something like this:
Caller: I am calling from Telstra and want to inform you that your internet will be disconnected for 15 days. Do you want to know why?
Me: Telstra isn't our internet provider.
Caller: It doesn't matter, Telstra provides all the internet connections.
Suspicion was kicking in big time now, because if you're not with Telstra you do everything through your provider and they will deal with Telstra if needed. Telstra will just refer you to your provider if you go direct to them.
Me: Okaaay..
Caller: Do you want to know why you are going to be disconnected?
Me: Sure, go for it.
Caller: You've been downloading viruses and it's affecting the network, causing problems.
Me: I still don't see why it's not my provider contacting me about this.
Caller: You can sort the problem from your computer, well talk you through it...
At this point I hung up. I guess I could have played him along a bit more and pretended to be following instructions on the computer, but I had other things I wanted to get done.
A little look online shows me that this scam has been going on for a few years. Typical, I'm always the last one to get to join in the fun!
Apparently they can get quite threatening if you call them out and threaten legal proceedings for damaging the network.
Be paranoid folks!
Trust no-one!
Almost forgot! I nominate 
