(Hanging on the) telephone

We seem to be on a list. Some theoretically reputable company we gave our number to has sold it on, and we now get several calls a week from offshore call centres - often involving some sort of scam.

A popular favourite is the one where they phone to say there is a 'problem with our computer', which is surprisingly easily thwarted by asking "which one?" Doesn't seem to be an answer in the script for that.

A new one today though. A man with a distinctly Indian accent called annoyingly early and announced his name was Andrew (get the first lie in early) and that he worked for BT (perfectly possible). He then announced that our wifi router was infected with a virus and unless this was fixed our Broadband would be turned off at the end of the day.

I really had to restrain myself from giving him a volley of abuse for the offensively early call and the insultingly stupid nature of his scam. After all, time spent on the phone with me is time that can't be spent conning someone else. Also it was their phone bill.

"Oh my god, that's terrible, I can't live without my broadband, please, please don't switch it off", I begged.

I worried that I might have oversold it, but apparently not.

"Do not worry sir, we can fix the problem now, with just a little bit of your time"

"Oh thank god. Thank you so much. Please tell me what I can do."

"No problem sir, I just need you to go to your PC and I can direct you what to do"

"My PC? Oh, I don't have one of those things son. Never understood them".

"Well maybe your tablet computer, or mobile phone".

"No. I can't be doing with them either."

He hung up at this point. Maybe next time I'll agree to go to my PC and then pretend it takes 10 minutes to boot up before telling them to FRO.

Of course I'll feel really stupid if my broadband really is switched off.