A Failure in Irony

I've been getting these phone calls, lately, from "Geek Support Live." On the one hand, I want to applaud these people for their innovation, but the other hand wants to slap them. See, these are scam phone calls from India. I think it's an actual company. They call and tell you your computer has a security issue and if you will just follow their instructions, they will fix it for you. Of course, "Geek Support" is close enough to "Geek Squad" to make people consider what they're saying, but they also imply that they're from Microsoft.

I treat the calls like I often do with telemarketing calls, meaning I engage with them. Well, not always, but often enough. I find it amusing. Yes, I know I'm obnoxious, but getting telemarketing calls at 8:00 and 9:00pm is also obnoxious. So... anyway...

The first couple of times I got these calls from Geek Support Live, I asked all kinds of questions the guy couldn't answer but would always respond with, "It doesn't matter." Questions like
"What version of Windows am I running?"
"What kind of security issue am I having?"
"Who is it you're trying to call?"
Now, this third question was interesting, because, the first time I asked it, the guy responded with that "it doesn't matter" response. Basically, "you could be anyone with a computer." heh
Now, the second time I got one of those calls, the answer was disturbing, because they actually gave me a name; it was one of the wrong number names we frequently get to our phone number, but it showed more of a targeted call rather than random phone numbers.

Some other time, I told the caller that I didn't have a PC but a Mac; he immediately switched scripts and started telling me he could help me anyway.

I hadn't actually had anymore calls from them in a while until just the past couple of weeks. Frequently, I joke to my wife about the stupid calls like that that we get so, when I got the first new call, I mentioned it to her. She said, "It would be funny if the next time they call you tell them that you are from Geek Support Live and their computer is having an issue." I agreed. That would be terribly funny.

And it was terribly funny.

When I got the call today, as soon as the guy told me he was from Geek Support Live and that my computer was having a security issue, I said, "No, I'm from Geek Support Live, and your computer is having a security issue." At first, he didn't understand and tried to correct me, "No, I'm from Geek Support Live...," to which I replied, "No, I'm from Geek Support. My computer is telling me that your computer has a virus."
"No, my computer is okay."
"That's not what my computer is telling me."
"You're computer says my computer has a virus?"
"Yes, that what it says."
Of course, the actual conversation was quite a bit longer than that, but, somewhere in there, the Indian guy from Geek Support started laughing. He kept trying to cover it up, but I could hear him. I managed to keep a straight face, so to speak, throughout the call.

A little while later, they called back. It sounded like the same guy, but it may have just been the accent. We had a very similar start to the conversation until the guy said to me, "You must have a super computer."
I just went with it, "I do. I do have a super computer."
"You must, because you'd have to have a super computer to be able to tell you that my computer has a virus."
And that's where I almost laughed, because he failed to get the irony in what he was saying. I was supposed to believe that he, with his normal computer, could tell that my computer was infected, but I would need a super computer to tell the same thing of his. It was quite amusing.
Then he asked me if I was with Obama, because I would have to be with Obama (like be standing right there next to the President) to have access to a computer like that. But I still managed to keep a straight face.

The whole thing was very satisfying. And, no, I have no analogy or anything for this. It's just a page out of my life. You should have seen the looks my kids gave me every time I was having one of those conversations.

Oh, later, another guy from Geek Support called; it was definitely a different guy. He got offended when I told him that I was from Geek Support, too, then tried to tell me that the other two calls I had earlier in the day had not, in fact, been from Geek Support. Those guys were impostors. He even very helpfully offered to connect me to the Better Business Bureau so that I could confirm with them that he and only he was really from Geek Support Live.

I'm kind of looking forward to the next time they call.
Is that bad?