What happens when you call out a phone scammer trying to access your computer has been revealed in audio sent to The AM Show.
The audio, sent in after panellist Louise Wallace shared her own story of being scammed on Wednesday, begins with the scammer telling the man on the other end of the phone he's in danger of being hacked.
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"I've just called you to provide security update and also to resolve those IPs from your internet so that your internet can become safe and secure for the future use okay?" the scammer tells the man, who agrees to cooperate.
But after about three minutes of listening to the scammer's instructions, the man changes tack abruptly, saying he doesn't want to do what the scammer is telling him.
"You know why I don't want to?" he says.
"Okay just, uh, f**k your mum, motherf**ker," scammer responds.
The man on the end of the line then drops any pretence of being nice to the scammer and begins an expletive-filled rant of his own.
"Yeah f**k you too you f**king asshole, f**king scamming c**t," the man says.
On Wednesday Wallace revealed she had been targetted by scammers claiming to be Spark while she was setting up her internet after moving.
Wallace said she thought somebody at Spark had passed her information on to scammers, but the provider poured cold water on the theory, telling Newshub it was simply a coincidence.
NetSafe chief executive Martin Cocker told The AM Show on Thursday scammers often pick the most popular brand from a country they're targeting with and then try their luck at random.
But there's also a lot of information out there on the internet that will give them a chance to target you.
"Whether it's stuff that you've put out or its stuff that's been stolen and put out. Take something as simple as your email address, which is fairly public.
"Your email address often indicates which of the telcos you're with, so that gives them a starting point to communicate with you and say 'I'm from Vodafone'."
He said people should be wary of any calls that come from internet providers unprompted.
"Most businesses don't ring you proactively and say they want to fix something that you've not reported to them as broken.
"There is some plausibility I guess because you're connected to a network and they could know something, but this is a common scam tactic."
Newshub.
