In Not the News today (content may offend), as the New Zealand economy continues to dwindle along, a new form of cheap entertainment is emerging – ‘Conning the Conner'.

With people's psyche in a slump, con artists are taking advantage, with anecdotally a significant increase in the number of phone scammers preying on people's dinner and evening relaxation time.

This new entertainment, ‘Conning the Conner', is about turning the tables on these dinner time disturbers.

I got a doozy last night.

The phone rang at 6.50pm when I was absorbed in the second half of Crowd Goes Wild – arguably New Zealand's best made, funny and all-round excellent TV show (the fact it's sport news is a bonus).

But anyway, the polite voice on the end of the crackly phone line had a timid Indian accent, yet the man called himself ‘Jack Thomson' and said he was from Rongotai.

Now I'm no expert on people's names, but I am pretty sure there are zero people on Earth of Indian descent that have such generic European names as Jack Thomson.

On the strength of this alone and within the first minute of the phone call, I knew I had a great game of Conning the Conner at hand.

'Sir, following the earthquake in Christchurch, a number of hackers have taken advantage of the situation and planted infections on people's computers,” says Jack.

'We have had reports of some 30 or so households in towel-rang-her (that's Tauranga in a timid Indian accent) having system shutdowns owing to these infections.

'We need to check your computer to make sure it is okay.”

This is going to be awesome! Jack has no idea I already know he is a scammer and I have no intention of letting him know this either; not yet anyway.

He instructs me to switch on my computer, which I conveniently tell him is already switched on, despite it actually being downstairs and switched off – and I'm not moving from the couch as that would mean missing some Crowd Goes Wild and frankly, that's not an option.

So Jack continues.

'Now can you please, sir, follow my directions.

'Click on the ‘start' button and then right click on where it says ‘computer'.

'Select ‘manage' and then open ‘event viewer'.

'Now do you see on the screen all of the warnings and errors in a list?

'These are breaches of your computer security.”

Wow, I thought; as I watched a Pittsburgh Penguin smash up some other ice hockey player really bad.

So, ‘wow', I said to Jack.

He then explained:

'I am calling from VirtualPCDoctor.com on behalf of the Beehive and The Global Computer Maintenance Department of the World.”

I could barely contain the laughter.

‘The Global Computer Maintenance Department of the World' – you have got to be kidding me. This name falls right into rule number two of Conning the Conner 101: ‘If a scammer provides a ridiculously convoluted name for an organisation, it is fake'.

The Global Computer Maintenance Department of the World is surely the most ludicrously named fake organisation I have ever heard of.

First off, what business is going to have both ‘global' and ‘world' in its name?

Second of all, the name doesn't make any sense as it implies the ‘World' has multiple departments and I'm pretty sure the ‘World' has zero departments. It is simply a big hunk of rock and not a government entity, large shopping store or section of a school.

The third ridiculous part about this name is that it could also imply there is just one awesome ‘Global Computer' and Jack from the ‘Maintenance Department' needs to fix it. Well, if there is one, I'm pretty sure it's not my two-year-old laptop that gets used to surf the net, adjust my Cricinfo Cricket World Cup Fantasy Cricket Team and write ridiculous articles such as this one.

‘Jack' the con artist is failing miserably. His attempt at authority by name dropping the ‘Beehive' wasn't helping his cause either as there is no way someone calling in a government capacity is going to announce the authority of the ‘Beehive'.

We're not in America where such an expression with the White House is commonplace. This was clearly an oversight by their English culture coach when teaching the New Zealand model to the scammer.

So anyway, that's like two Conning the Conner points for me (first for noting Jack Thomson is bogus and second for picking The Global Computer Maintenance Department of the World is also fake) and zero points for ‘Jack' as he continues talking along to his script completely oblivious to the fact I don't even have my computer turned on – despite him giving me step-by-step instructions on what to be clicking on for the last 15 minutes.

‘Jack' was confident he had me. I was so accepting of his claims of infections on my computer that he now directed me to www.virtualpcdoctor.com

‘What a brilliant name for a scam website' I thought. It sounds all awesome and techno, but actually the literal meaning of it implies that the ‘PC Doctor' is an illusion. Sheer genius, but of course, our dear ‘Jack' clearly is not.

That makes the score 3-0.

He now began navigating me around this website and talked about how the virus protection offered by virtualPCdoctor was second to none – including my paid for and reputable Norton package.

‘Jack' paused for a moment and advised he had to fetch an access code for me so I could log in to the site. He put the phone down.

This placed me at an interesting crossroads in the game of Conning the Conner. I wanted to now go to my computer and switch it on and investigate the website I was supposed to already be looking at.

Crowd Goes Wild had finished, so I thought – okay, I can run with playing along one step; despite it meaning ‘Jack' would score a point.

Laptop is on and the score moves to 3-1.

Before I could get onto the internet, however, ‘Jack' returned with the six-digit code and instructed me to type it into a certain field on the screen.

I jotted it down the old fashioned way – pen and paper – and then continued to play along with Jack's step-by-step instructions as my computer continued to boot.

What came next disturbed me greatly as many less observant and computer savvy people might blindly do as he instructed.

'So the code is in now and you pressed enter,” says Jack.

'Now some choices have displayed with choices ‘run' or ‘cancel'; you should select ‘run'.

'Now choose ‘accept'.”

Oh dear. This command sequence occurs when installing a program on a computer.

‘What could it be?' I wondered.

Some spyware that reads every website visited and then sends back the information to the PC Doctor?

A virus that shuts down the computer and prevents it from ever turning on again?

An unchangeable computer desktop wallpaper photograph of Helen Clark topless?

The terrors of such thoughts were horrendous and it was in this moment that I thought about all the people who may have succumbed to ‘Jack's' ploy. Horrific.

I never got to find out what the program was though.

Having now agreed with ‘Jack's' every word for close to 30 minutes, he finally called me out.

'My technical advisor has informed me you have not typed in the access code.”

Damn. That makes the Conning the Conner score 3-2. He is catching up!

At least I was confident of a strong finish.

'So ‘Jack',” I said.

'The reason I have not put the code in is because for the last 30 minutes I have not had my computer switched on.”

The silence that followed was awesome.

I would say the score was 4-2 at this point, but hearing the penny drop is definitely worth a bonus, so let's go with 5-2.

‘Jack' broke the silence as his timid Indian accent dropped and a harsher, faster tone of voice took over.

'You mean, we have not done anything on your computer for the last 30 minutes? But why? Why you waste my time like that?”

'Because ‘Jack', you are a scammer and I wanted to rob some of your time,” I replied.

‘Jack' erupted into a torrent of enraged words, calling me unpatriotic and a fool for not believing in his schemes.

He cited the backing of the Beehive, his attempt to save me from great trouble, his passion for helping a stranger and then his anguish at how I had wasted his time.

I laughed, told him to ‘F off' and hung up.

I took the point for being the first to hang up to take the final score to 6-2.

A satisfying match and I didn't miss any Crowd Goes Wild.