A New Zealand police officer has brilliantly trolled a man posing as a Microsoft employee in an attempt to trick him into disclosing personal data - all the while recording the conversation, and posting audio of it to social media.
In the recorded phone conversation, which has also been captioned for the benefit of New Zealand Police's Facebook audience, the scammer attempts to get the policeman to log onto a website.
The site, www.teamviewer.com, is a desktop management tool known to be legitimate - although a worldwide scam has been unleashed this year that allows scammers to hijack the software offered by the website to access people's personal data.
The scam has been prevalent in the UK, with British internet service provider TalkTalk blocking the website from its network - and now it looks as though scammers are looking further afield, with New Zealand one of its new targets.
But they weren't expecting a policeman to pick up the phone - and when he asks the scammer what it is they are doing for him, the scammer only had a nonsensical answer.
"Actually this is the support server connection of Windows' technical department, sir," he explained.
"So we would be able to help you ensure the problems of your computer, okay? Have you typed www.teamviewer.com?"
When the policeman says he has, the scammer then asks him to "click the enter button and let me know what you see" - but the officer refuses, and simply responds with: "Is this a scam, mate?"
The scammer offers up another odd and nervous reply, saying if it were indeed a scam, he wouldn't have called - and would simply have "directly taken access to your computer, hacked your computer, and would've done anything with your computer".
Later the policeman reveals his place of work, and asks the scammer whether he's aware that he'd just tried to deceive the New Zealand Police into divulging personal data.
"So you're trying to scam the New Zealand Police?" he asks, but is cut off by the scammer, who at this point gives up pretending to be a Microsoft employee.
"Shut up, f**k off," he says, before hanging up.
New Zealand Police offered a warning on its video's caption, saying those who receive a similar call should not give access to their computer, or pass on any personal or financial data.
Newshub.
