Tech support scams - by phone!

[jamin100]

It wasn't mentioned, but I will enquire.

The one my parents had about 2 weeks ago was.

[Rydra]

I have written the body text for a letter myself, and am going to hand this to SMT to deal with, and possibly reword etc.

Contents can be found below.

There has been a number of incidents recently about cold-callers to business, and homes claiming to be from Microsoft, or various other large IT related companies, that report that you have a problem with your computer, such as viruses, or invalid software. They then ask you to goto a website, which will allow them to remotely control your computer.
If you receive such a call, unless you know the company, and/or the person calling as you have subscribed to paid technical support, or requested the support, please do NOT follow his instructions, and simply hang up.
Should you fall prey to any of these hoaxes, they may attempt to charge you themselves to fix it. DO NOT give them your money. Switch off your computer Immediately, and seek technical advice from someone you trust.

I’d also like to make you aware of a website becoming popular with young people at this time, called Chatroulette!.
This site, although stating a minimum age of 16, has some highly questionable, and unsuitable material on it, and is NOT recommended that anyone uses this site. If you have any parental controls available on your computer, it is highly recommended this site is added to the block listings.
Regards,
Network Manager

[RinSewand]

Mind if I borrow + amend the first paragraph for an all-staff email?

(Should possibly be 'There have' instead of 'There has'

[Rydra]

Do as you wish, I wrote that in about 2 minutes without checking it.

An interesting point was raised about this though.... When it started, only a few thousand users, after a little while, in the 10's of thousands.... National media disgraces it, user count raises into the 100's of thousands....

[RinSewand]

Taa - edited it down a bit and emailed to all staff. Saved me having to use all my braincells today! I'm keeping some in reserve for tomorrow...

[AyatollahPies]

Do as you wish, I wrote that in about 2 minutes without checking it.

An interesting point was raised about this though.... When it started, only a few thousand users, after a little while, in the 10's of thousands.... National media disgraces it, user count raises into the 100's of thousands....

On the flipside, it shows that there is still a need for IT experts like our goodselves, as there are still an awful lot of folk out there that do not understand the dangers of the internet.

[Martin]

Well these scammers (international) called me at home earlier tonight

Same MO as in the (digitaltoast) YouTube video "is your computer slow", "are you having problems" followed by let me put you through to my supervisor - at which point i hung up. Five minutes later their "technical expert" called me back, only to receive a mouthful from me - but i wish that i had remembered the details of this topic 'cos i would have loved to string them along for half an hour or so

Next time :evilgrin:

mb

[difinity]

I got one of these calls last night, but this time they claimed to be from Virgin Media, and that the proor quality line had caused errors with my PC.

[michael2k6]

Just a little aside - i'm sure those it will matter to will know - but logmein123.com is a valid and genuine site. It's the corporate version of logmein, so these ridiculous people must have an account for that if they're actually remoting in using it. I'm not saying you're wrong and that the people are genuine, just that that site in particular is (to not put people here off using it for genuine purposes).
I'm sure if they were reported to logmein, they would take it very seriously.
I only say this as we use logmein123.com at work. It will prompt you to download and run an exe and then asks you to confirm remote control, advises you to close confidential stuff etc.
It bothers me greatly that people still get away with this but then i supose why wouldn't they!

Meh.

[Martin]

Next time :evilgrin:

Well i just managed to waste thirty two minutes of their "technical expert"'s (who admitted that he was based in India) time

Apparently now that my Windows PC is no longer supported by Microsoft, errors and warning are sent to their Windows Service Centre in Bradford which is where they detected that my PC was running slowly and may have malware and stuff on it!

When i typed "eventvwr" into the run box there were "dozens" of errors - although the tech didn't know what a "dozen" was so i has to say "twenty four" instead. Also, did you know that typing "prefetch" into the run box will show you all of the malware that has been downloaded to your PC from the Internet. You can confirm this by double-clicking on any file contained therein and Windows will say that it cannot open it

I asked him to confirm my computer name or IP address and he said that it was "secret" but kept repeating my home address (which is in the phone book).

Give him credit though, he hung on whilst i openly called him a lier, threatened to report him to the authorities and challenged him on his knowledge of computers - but in the end he hung up without even saying goodbye

So next time i need to keep 'em talking for more than 32 minutes

mb

[witch]

You must have played the untechnical computer user very well for hiim to stay on the line for that long! Reminds me of the time I got a phone call from india telling me I could sort out my extensive debts with one payment blah blah. I asked him how he knew I had big debts and he hesitated and then said " your neighbours told us!"