Indians calling from "Telstra"

I have been getting a heap of calls from Indians pretending to be from Telstra claiming the i have security issues with my internet. I have once or twice kept these guys on the line for 20 min or so and other times I have got rid of them. One of the last guys told me to F, off after jerking his chain for a while.
I assume they are trying to get remote access to your computer. not sure how? anybody else have any ideas on what these guys are up to?

I too love jerking their chains.
I think there are two different scams going with these calls, first one is getting you to give them remote access to your computer at which point they can lock you out of it unless you pay them, second one is to convince you that your computer is so full of virus’s that if you don’t give them your credit card details to pay them to fix it it’ll die of the AIDS, then they can rack up a bunch of debt on your card.
I consider wasting as much of their time as i can a civic duty, it hopefully keeps them from taking advantage of someone else in that time.

@sungazer
Correct. This is generally referred to as a social engineering attack.

They are trying to do two things:

  1. Remote access to your computer;
  2. Get financial information, either credit card or get your payment redirected.

Finally, make sure not to give away your details, like name, surname, date of birth, etc.

If someone asks you to verify yourself, make sure to ask the same first. At that stage, still don’t verify yourself, because no organisation will ever ask you to do so, if they call you. If they do, tell them that you have no idea whom they are and you will call them back via company switchboard. If you get redirected to them, then you’re good because you know that reception can find them in company directory.