What is an open call usually like?

How do Microsoft Windows Virus telemarketing scams work and what's it like to work in a call centre running the scam?

• Frequently, I receive calls from telemarketers, which are obvious scams, that my computer is infected with a virus.  I am curious though as to what it's like to work in such a call centre, and if anyone has  experience doing so I think it would be fascinating to learn more about what it's like. Specifically, I am curious about who sources them, are they sourced by the call centres themselves, or is someone in North America sourcing and profiting from them?  Are the callers aware that they are involved in a scam, or do they truly believe they are removing virus infections from people's computers?  What are the working conditions like? How do people find jobs in such call centres? And in general what is the experience like?

• Answer:

  At least some of them most know that what they are doing are only for the money and hang up right away when they get caught in the act. Usually I tell them to get a real job but one time I listened to one of the virus hoax sales guys just to see how far I could challenge him and I was quite surprised how well his manuscript was written. I questioned him if he could prove he was from Microsoft and he told me that he had a unique code which was only on my personal computer. He asked me to start CMD which he called something like "Computer Management Display" :-D and enter the command ASSOC .MYDOCS and told me a code that ended with 59367 - only problem was that I was doing this on my work computer - and on one of my colleagues computer - which I told him <click> :-) NOTE: I knew the ASSOC command was not dangerous because it tells the system which programs to run when you click on a file and (usually) we all want to run the same basic programs, i.e., the code will be the same on all Windows computers.