Please note, iTWire is not at liberty to divulge either the website or the members' identities.  Therefore all quotes, although accurate, will not be attributed.

The discussion started with this surprising comment: "I was contact[ed] this morning asking me to pay about $495 US annually to protect my site. From what I could understand, they put their logo on my site and when you search [my website] in Google it will show it is a McAfee protected site. He [the call centre operator] guaranteed an 11% increase in sales as well."

Others reported emotional blackmail: "They called me on Monday too. I was told I would get a 20% increase in sales. When I told them I wasn't interested, the answer was 'you don't want to increase your sales by 20%?' "

Fortunately, other site members were suitably sceptical: "OMG I just got contacted from them about 15min ago. One, couldn't understand what they were saying and two not interested. Don't sell me something like this over the phone and promise and guarantee when you can't deliver."

iTWire asked if site members thought the calls were coming from an overseas call centre. 

"Yep and I think the guy that called me had an American accent which I struggled to understand."

"It definitely was for me. 1 - it was a lady with that weird accent that sounds like an Asian trying to sound like an American, and 2, only a minute before they called I saw someone looking at my contact us page and it was from overseas. I can't remember where, I actually have a funny feeling that it might have been Turkey. Could be wrong about that though."

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