Microsoft Customers Hit With New Wave of Fake Tech Support Calls

rjmarvin writes "A new surge of callers posing predominately as Microsoft technicians are attempting and sometimes succeeding in scamming customers, convincing them their PCs are infected and directing them to install malware-ridden software or give the callers remote access to the computer. The fraudsters also solicit payment for the fake services rendered. This comes only a year after the FTC cracked down on fake tech support calls, charging six scam operators last October."

How to almost get scammed...

[MobyDisk]

I work for a fortune 500 that uses Unisys in India for our helpdesk. I had 2 outstanding requests with them when I came down with a cold and had to work from home for a few days. When a heavily accented Indian guy called my cell phone telling me he was calling from the helpdesk, and that I could go to logmein.com and he would remote in and take a look, it almost sounded legit.

This could easily have fooled someone since I had outstanding incidents, we use an Indian helpdesk, they do use logmein, and they do have my cell phone number (which they might actually use since I was not at my desk at work). The primary remaining tip-offs were: 1) They didn't know my incident number and 2) My requests were for hardware issues not software. But if I had a problem like being unable to login to Outlook or access a network share, I wouldn't have had much reason to distrust them.

Re:Its never stopped its been going on for 4-5 yea

[im_thatoneguy]

It's ongoing and it's also inaccurate to say "Microsoft's Customers" since it implies that these guys have a mailing list that they're using. I know a couple people who have gotten the call and they only have Macs. They're just moving from country to country and randomly calling anyone who will listen. I'm sure there are variations on the scam that adjust for specificity vs scope. For instance if I call and say I'm from Dell technical support and you're a Dell customer you're more likely to feel like it's true since they called you and knew you had a dell "how else would they know!". I'm actually pretty surprised that someone hasn't gone "all the way" and crafted the script to be like
"Hi, you called dell Technical Support a couple weeks ago and I'm following up to say that it appears that we didn't correctly resolve your issue."

The odds of getting someone who did call support in the last couple of weeks are low, but if you hit someone who did your chances of them believing you are very high.

Re:It's not hard to tell

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Not long ago I gat a call from a 1-800 number (I never answer these numbers.) They left a message telling me there was a problem with my credit card, and asking me to call them back and giving my the same number that showed up on call display.
Naturally I googled the number. About half the people were saying it was legit, and half saying a scam. I checked the number against the number on the back of my credit card, and it did not match. I calld the number on my credit card, just to be sure.
It turns out that there was a problem, someone buying show tickets on the east coast while I am on the west coast.

So even the banks are screwed up. They should be telling me to call the number on my card. I wonder what would have happened if I had just ignored the call. I was quite disappointed.

For the record, Royal Bank of Canada.

these people are incredibly persistent

[sribe]

A month or two ago, I was getting daily, sometimes twice-daily calls from these clowns in India. I told the first one that I knew it was a scam, and was even explaining exactly how the scam works, when I was interrupted with "I assure you this is not a scam" and practically being ordered to quit arguing and let him fix my PC.

Another time I told the guy "go fuck yourself", which was greeted with a long pause, and then "I'm sorry sir, I'm in an office right now and cannot do that here".

Another time I laid into the guy, lecturing him about being a criminal parasite, and a "worthless sack of shit" among other terms, and we got into this thing where I was cursing a blue streak while he said over and over, almost rhythmically, in that heavy Indian accent "shut up, shut up, you shut up, shut up, shut up, you shut up..."

Another time I asked the guy "do you like to fuck monkeys?", and when he responded with some confusion I explained "I was just wondering, since obviously your father fucked a monkey to make you", and then he just continued as though I had not just insulted him.

Really, it seems impossible to get these shit-filled monkey-fuckers to give up and hang up, no matter how badly you abuse them. But there is one thing I never had the patience to try... I'm not a Windows user, but I do have some Windows VMs, so I've thought that I should fire up a copy of one, follow their instructions, and when the hit me up for payment reply, "nah, instead I think I'll just delete the virtual machine we've been working in". Maybe that would actually piss them off enough to get them to hang up--you think?

Re:Hallo Windows man

[lazarus]

My call went something like this:

Scammer: "Hi Sir. I am calling you on behalf of Microsoft. It has come to our attention that your computer has been infected with viruses and trojans."
Me: "Does your mom know that you scam people for a living?"
-click-
Me: "Hello?"

My customers have ben taken a few times

[Zibodiz]

I own a computer repair shop, so I see all the random junk at various times. I've had 3 computers come in with this; the first came in because "it had a virus that the Windows guys couldn't fix", and after I explained that "the Windows guys" are a fraud, she decided to bring in her other computer to have me remove their junk as well. The scammer had done A LOT to the computer, changing account permissions so that she coldn't do anything, giving themselves admin access in a separate account, then revoking hers, and had installed 3 different remote desktop applications. While I was looking at it, they connected to it without notice via TeamViewer. I just disconnected it fromt he internet, backed up her files, and wiped it; with how much they'd done, I didn't feel there was any way to be sure I'd gotten it all without starting from scratch. The 3rd was a friend of my mom's; she had falled for the scam and paid $300, then about a month later she saw a bunch of fraudulent charges on her credit card so she cancelled it and got a new number; about a wee later, she got another call from the scammers, telling her that because she uses her computer for games and watching videos, she had to pay another $500 and they would give her extra protection. Thankfully, at that point, she realized they were scammers (she's a little old lady who uses it for email and nothing else, and has no idea how to play any games, or even what YouTube is), and brought the computer to me. The interesting thing is that the scammers had not done as much to her PC as they had to the other customer, which leads me to think that they don't have an automated script, but manually change settings on the computer. That means a lot of time and effort for each mark.

Re:total scam. Microsoft doesn't call or write.

[Jamie Ian Macgregor]

agreed, once had the micro$oft fairies raid our warehouse, apparently they shipped us more OEM win98 packages than we had paid for... they came in without warning and walked around the entire building with the CEO picking up any unopened copies sitting around... including the one on my workbench which belonged to a customer. that was when I really began to hate them. up until then I was just hating to be cool.