Microsoft Customers Hit With New Wave of Fake Tech Support Calls 201
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."
Another ad posing as a slashdot article (Score:5, Informative)
This looks more like an advertisement for sdt.bz than an actual Slashdot article.
Here's the real article:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9244207/Fake_Windows_tech_support_calls_continue_to_plague_consumers [computerworld.com]
Re:Another ad posing as a slashdot article (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, well, it's a problem with the slashcode. If you'll just leave your username, password, full name, address, and social security number in a reply below, we'll address this problem as soon as we can.
Signed,
A totally legitimate slashdot developer, I promise.
total scam. Microsoft doesn't call or write. (Score:5, Insightful)
unless you're a commercial licensee, then you can't keep them out of the place with guard dogs and crew-served weapons.
cold calls on the phone? scam.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:social engineering (Score:5, Funny)
I'd go after the AOL market.
If you're still on AOL, then you definitely _need_ our updates kind sir. ...
Click on the Windows 95 start button then bring up Netscape then
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Hallo Windows man (Score:3, Funny)
We are detect you having the problem with the Microsoft. We make you no having the problem. Fifty dollars, in rupees if please.
- "Mike"
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First step in completing a successful con; get the mark to think that they are smarter than you. If the mark thinks you are a ignorant third-worlder who can barely speak English (the natural language of all intelligent people), you will find it easier to scam them.
Looks like "Mike" has successfully achieved this.
Re:Hallo Windows man (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hallo Windows man (Score:5, Funny)
I played along when they called me. Acted like i knew nothing about computers. I could almost hear him drooling over the phone. After 10 minutes of him trying to get me to click start, he asked what version of windows I had. When I told him it was linux, he said "Oh, f*ck you!" and hung up the phone. I was probably more entertained by that then I should have been.
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I did something similar. Had the guy on the phone for over 30 minutes. I was on a Mac and did everything exactly as he said to. It took about 10 minutes before he was able to get me to open a web browser ("I don't have a button that says 'Start'" — would have worked for modern Windows as well), and then another 15 minutes before he could get me on the right website (he left out a dot in the URL, so it became "wwwscamsite.com").
At the end I told him I didn't need the scam and that my Mac was fine.
Here'
Re:Hallo Windows man (Score:5, Interesting)
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?"
Re:Hallo Windows man (Score:4, Insightful)
My father was hit by one of these scammers. Thankfully, he got suspicious when they said he should go to a website to download a program that they would use to remote into his PC. He called me up (with the guy on another line) to ask me advice. My advice was to hang up. He kept saying "but he showed me this" and "but this guy said that." My advice didn't change. "I don't care what he said or showed you or told you to do. HANG UP on him NOW!!!"
This "tech" was also calling from "Windows" and showed my father "proof" of the fact that his computer was filled with viruses (the Event Log which will have errors on even the cleanest and most secure of Windows PCs). For someone not savvy with computers, this is proof positive that this guy knows what he is talking about and that you need to follow what he tells you. For some reason, people just don't realize that Microsoft (or "Windows") isn't looking at everyone's computers and helping fix every virus infection. If they were able to do that, Windows might have a much better security reputation. (For the sheer fact that building a more secure OS would mean devoting less man power to calling users to help fix their PCs.)
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One of my hockey buddies was caught by this. He gave them his credit card number. When he told me this I said that he should cancel his credit card immediately. Luckily they only had time to charge $300 on his credit card. He's a nice guy but damn his BS meter didn't work well that time.
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The point of saying something so obviously stupid as 'the windows' is to quickly weed out anyone who is going to figure out the scam. If you're stupid enough to continue past 'the windows' sort of comments then its likely they can scam you. If you don't continue past that point, they've saved themselves time by not dragging you part of the way through the scam when you figure it out.
They are intentionally targeting that 1% by making it obviously a scam to the other 99%.
Problem is, they are so good at the
Re:Hallo Windows man (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's exactly why they start with something so stupid. If you're going to see through their scam, they want you to do it early and hang up so they can call a (they hope) softer target.
Re:Hallo Windows man (Score:4, Funny)
I look forward to these calls - any time the CND shows "OVERSEAS" I get ready.
"Hello Sir, I'm calling from....your computer is...." the usual crap.
"Which computer? I have lots"
"All of them" (that was funny)
"Which IP address?"
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Finally tell them I use Linux. One guy actually called me a liar when I said that. I held him on for a few minutes denying I used Windows (if he's going to lie to me, I will return the favour) - he got more and more angry, finally called me a fucking arsehole and hung up. My kids came and asked why I was laughing so much.
Re:Hallo Windows man (Score:4, Insightful)
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You forgot to introduce yourself as "Peggy".
For those who don't get the reference, Peggy isn't a female [youtube.com]. Here's one I like [youtube.com]... sooo true!
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Its never stopped its been going on for 4-5 years (Score:2)
The scammers behind it has just moved from country to country and when done in one they moved on to the next. When gone through all the worlds countries they are back in the same old countries again.
So its still ongoing - they have never stopped. The fact that not Interpol has managed to stop them is a sure sign of the fact that the police is nearly incapable of stopping common criminals who operate out of other countries.
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You don't appear to care that your relatives have been kidnapped, you insensitive clod!
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They all disowned him.
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Re:Its never stopped its been going on for 4-5 yea (Score:5, Funny)
Too bad about the do not call list. It severely cut down my abilities to mess with telemarketers.
First one
"OH thank GOD you called this computer has been a mess for 3 days I can not get rid of this virus" *click*
second one I was busy putting in a AC unit
I was going to go with bringing up a linux VM and seeing how far he got. But the AC needed my attention more.
"its a scam you know it I know it move on" *click*
Third one is my best work so far
"That is totally cool how did you do that?"
"Oh the computer calls in and we reach out to our customers"
"No I mean how did you do that when I have no computers"
"well someone in your household must have one"
"Just me living here"
"there *must* be a computer"
"Nope got rid of the blasted things I hate them"
It was most amusing the guy could not conceive that I did not own a computer.
So far my record for getting them stay online before they hangup is 7 mins.
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Re:Its never stopped its been going on for 4-5 yea (Score:5, Funny)
Come at me bro!
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Ha! In America we just shoot missiles at em or have the CIA/NSA/Seals snag them and then drop them off in Egypt for torture... I mean "questioning"
Re:Its never stopped its been going on for 4-5 yea (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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I run a phone system that covers 5 exchanges... It's fun watching them when their auto-dialer starts hitting our numbers. I just route them all to the same recording -- which they hit just short of 50,000 times.
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Oh sure... (Score:5, Funny)
NOW they listen to the IT guy's instructions?
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After next April .... (Score:5, Funny)
Had one of those at work... (Score:2)
Had a guy call about that at work pretending to be "tech support" last year.
The only problem is that regedit doesn't do much on AIX7, nor does attempting to run Win32/Win64 based executables. I asked him if he knew any patch to get POWER7 to work with this... needless to say, the conversation didn't last long.
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These people don't have a list of "Microsoft Customers", they simply know that Microsoft is such an 800-pound gorilla of a monoculture that they can call any random phone number, claim to know that you run Windows, and if you don't, that's simply statistical error.
Exactly. It's like the grandma scam.
Hello, Grandma?
If the person on the other end hangs up, no problem. If she says, "Is that you Laura?" then the caller _is_ Laura.
The reason the US Post Office is still hanging on is because actual physical junque mail is still cost-effective at a 1.8% return rate.
It's like a salesman who is only going to sell to one out of a hundred people. The first thing to do is to talk to 100 people and then hard sell the 3 that keep talking to you for more than 30 seconds.
no, I'm not Jim Bell, really. or Ted K, either. (Score:2)
Actually, I have no idea why I even have a telephone. But everyone else thinks I should have one.
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What if they didn't accept BTC? Would you not contribute then? Seems pretty petty, doesn't it?
Seems call operations should be too expensive (Score:2)
I've received around a dozen of these calls from "Windows Technical Support" and similar names, including 2 just this month. They're laughably inept, but no doubt a few among the clueless users would fall for it. They've taken to hanging up on me when I play with them a bit. Don't know why my number got on their lists at all.
What baffles me about the whole thing is how can this scam be worth the expense of running a call center? Is it really that successful that it can turn a profit after paying for a
Re:Seems call operations should be too expensive (Score:5, Informative)
For the same reason spam is profitable, because 2% or so of people fall for it.
So you've got a whole large number of cheap labor, calling from VOIP lines overseas, who may or may not get told to fuck off 100 times each day. But the two who think you sound like you're legit, well, that's probably your quota anyway.
The economics of this doesn't mean you have a bunch of North Americans hanging around in a call center getting paid decent money. You have hundreds (or thousands) of people in a foreign country who have been coached to learn enough English who just call huge numbers of people and hope for even a modest rate of people falling for it.
Do you know why some of the time you get nobody on the phone? The computers dial a vast amount of numbers, and when one connects they direct to an available operator. There isn't always someone there to answer.
And that's why you can get the same call 10 times in a week. It's purely made up on volume.
After all these years, when my phone rings, unless I know the number, recognize the voice, or can reach a threshold at which I believe that it's a legitimate call (which requires you be able to provide me with information, not the other way around) -- I more or less start out half hostile on the phone. Because some months, as many as 95% of all incoming calls are just scams. At least, before I started blocking "Unknown" and "Private Caller" -- if you won't tell me who you are, I'm not answering.
scripts (Score:5, Insightful)
We're very sorry about that and we're just now getting through our backlog and would like to fix your computer now...
or
Hello valued customer. With our brand-new AlwaysOnMonitoringTool (TM), we amazingly smart computer geeks in the cloud are able to see you are having some problems with your computer but we cannot see all of the problems and need some help getting in and fixing it....
I can easily see novices, grandmothers and wannabe CEOs falling for crap like that. Computing is magic to most people and if you don't sound like Voldemort, then you must be one of the good wizards.
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Boom goes the dynamite. Whoever this tech was had them get on one of their old XP machines, and then proceeded to guide them into bricking it.
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Never mind
My story (Score:2)
I posted a comment/question to a support web page for the backup device I use. About 10 minutes later, I get a call from a support technician, asking me to do stuff on my computer to verify the problem. He asked me to go to the "Start" menu, and open up something inside the control panel. I told him I don't own any Windows machines. He hung up almost immediately.
I should have strung him along for a while to see what he was trying to do. Oh well...next time.
I got called (Score:2)
Awhile back I got a phone call at 10PM. I answered it, partly because I thought it might be my brother, and mostly because I was mostly asleep. The guy mumbled something in an Indian accent that I couldn't understand, though I did catch something about my computer being slow. I mumbled something back, that he probably couldn't understand (I told you I wasn't awake), and hung up. Next morning, I realized that it was an attempted scam.
I ask them, "What's my IP address?" (Score:2)
That throws them off-script. I say, "If you're telling me my computer has viruses, you must know the IP address of the infected computer."
And then when they give me some Windows mumbo-jumbo, I'll say, "But all the computers here are Macs."
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That throws them off-script. I say, "If you're telling me my computer has viruses, you must know the IP address of the infected computer."
They'll say "Of course, it is 192.168.1.254".
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Or 127.0.0.1 :-)
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It's not hard to tell (Score:5, Informative)
I do technical support, but people have to come to me. I tell all my customers and potential customers that nobody cold-calls you, tells you they "have noticed" that your machine needs repair, and offers to do same. This is guaranteed to be a scam.
Other indications: A heavily accented voice saying: "Hello, my name is Frank and I am from The Microsoft and I am calling because we have noticed that your computer is infested with the viruses." I'm sorry, not only does nobody make that kind of call, nobody talks like that. (I have a friend who works at "The Microsoft", and he has decided he will henceforth be addressed as "The Frank"....) Like anything else these days, scam call centers are typically low paid foreign nationals with poor communication skills who are following a script. They do it this way because (a) the overhead is very low, and (b) it works, at least, often enough to be profitable.
These scams are not limited to fake tech support. I got a robocall a few weeks ago saying "This is a message from Chase bank. We regret to inform you that your Chase bank card has been frozen. To unlock your card, please press one to be connected to our security department". Obviously the helpful, heavily accented person you get when you press one will helpfully take your card number and identity, "unlock your card" and you'll have been robbed.
It's all the same type of scam. People sitting at card tables patiently calling number after number with the same, pre-written script, secure in the knowledge that there will be enough people who buy it to make their pimp happy and maybe they'll get a place to sleep that night.
Never give personal information to a cold call. Never believe anything you hear from a cold call. If you think it could be legit, conclude the call, look up the *real* number of whatever institution purports to have called you, and call them. Real institutions (even creditors) will understand when you insist on doing this. Do I really have to say, do *not* believe a cold call when they give you a number to call back.
Let's be careful out there.
Re:It's not hard to tell (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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The Chase Bank scam call had an incorrect number of digits in the caller ID.
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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.
Agree completely. I've had two legitimate calls from fraud prevention for my credit card, with a number to call back that did not match the number on the back of my card. They really need to stop doing this. It sets consumer expectations that a number you receive in a cold call is legitimate, which is a very dangerous assumption. In both cases, I called the number on the card, got routed to fraud prevention, and took care of it.
In my case, it was a credit union in the pacific northwest.
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One of my reasons for liked my bank is that I actually answered once and the woman on the phone introduced herself and said how they detected suspicious activity on the card. She then asked if I had my card with me and if it was a good time. I said "yes." She said, "Ok, good. Hang up and call the number on the back of your card." I did. One ring and then the automated system said, "Thank you for calling the $BANKNAME card services number. According to our records, you were recently connected with Michelle[obviously different voice] in our fraud prevention department. If you would like to reconnect with Michelle[obviously different voice], please stay on the line. If you would like to hear other options or to speak with a different representative, press star. [pause, then ringing] Fraud prevention, this is Michelle." The nice thing was, in order to dispute the charges, I didn't have to provide any information other than, "No, I've never been to Portland."
I loved having a credit union, until they switched card companies. Now the experience is totally different.
As an aside, the best check I've used is to ask what bank my card is through. Never going to guess that one and on the off chance they do, you can just say, "why does my card say $differentbankname?" Say they must be confused and hang up. You'd better bet that when they call back they will use whatever bank name you told them.
Side note: Your experience is exactly how it should be done.
The "chase bank" scam fell apart early because I don't have a Chase card. Actually, I would rather gouge my eyes out then do business with Chase. But my fear is that at least some of these calls are coming from people who have access to at least some of our personal information. As I said in a different thread, my last call from "The Microsoft" about my machine being "infested with the viruses" asked for me by my full name. This tells me right
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I got a call earlier this week from fraud prevention. The message said to call the 1-800 number OR to call the number on the back of the card and use a certain option.
Of course, I just called the number on my card, hit 0 to get a human, and had him redirect me.
And yes, it was Royal bank
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If so, good for them for fixing it.
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Can't mod you up more than you're at, so I'll say that if this was placed verbatim on a plac
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I actually got a legit cold-call from my cable company offering a pretty sweet package bundle thing for 12-months. Red flags went up just because, you know, cold call, but they were actually smart enough to have it set up such that I didn't have to provide any personal information to the cold caller (anything she needed was right in front of her) and the service appointment was set up within 15 minutes or so.
That said many cold calls are scams, and you should certainly be on your guard.
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Agreed they can be legit, but it's sometimes tricky to tell when they are.
The last call I got from "The Microsoft" telling me that my machine was "infested with the viruses", they asked for me by my full correct name. This alarms me. I am now wondering if someone's customer list was hacked and used for social engineering purposes by a scammer.
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I should say, I've really been tempted to keep one of those aerosol air horns (like you're supposed to keep in a boat for emergencies) by the phone. After establishing a scam in progress, a quick blast and then hang up. But I've been told that this is probably illegal.
Legitimate business model! (Score:2)
If this an actual thing, where people are able to be scammed (and invoiced!) for f**king over their computers, what about simply cold calling people with a spiel like this but actually FIX their !@#$ computer?
Most everybody has a crapton of malware on their computer, so if you call with a semi-legitimate intro, but actually do at least a half-assed job of fixing their computer, get a remote session going, etc. then why not make a few honest bucks?
Call back the people you've helped in 2-3 weeks and make sure
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That's.... actually, not a bad idea. My only hesitation is that a large number of the people you cold-call will inevitably be the ones who had received calls from scammers and seen through it, or even worse, had been previously crapped on by scammers. I contend there would be a significant chance that your day would consist of three or four police whistles in your ear at high volume. You'd have to provide for that.
When I retire, maybe I'll cold-call people and legitimately fix their computers for free, j
Do us a favor (Score:5, Informative)
Do the whole world a favor and keep these guys on the line as long as possible. While they are "helping" you, they're not scamming the vulnerable.
I find it's entertaining to talk to them as you imagine your 79 year old grandmother would. Inept but just able to do all that they ask ... after three or four tries.
"Just a minute, I need to start my computer. This might take awhile. I need to put the phone down, don't go away. OK, I'm back. Wait, I need to find my password. Hold on."
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user I have a error here
tech whats the error?
user I dont know, its just a error with a screen and now its gone, nothings happening
tech Ok, restart your computer
user ok, just a minute (2 minutes later)
tech did you restart?
user I pressed the button but nothing is happening, the computer is blinking.
tech what do you mean the computer is blinking?
user Never mind it stopped, i restarted, now the computer is just a black screen
tech do you mean the monitor?
user No, i mean the computer, its just black.
te
My dad fell for this one (Score:2)
No one (least of all him) can explain why he thought it was legit, especially considering how paranoid he is about securing his data. I had to spend a large chunk of my vacation reformatting and re-installing everything on his computer.
Pride in ignorance (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pride in ignorance (Score:4, Insightful)
And the rest of the world gets tired of the ignorant douchebag attitude that they're supposed to know how all this works.
If Snowden got passwords via social engineering, and Spear Phishing can get corporate executives of technology companies, you pretty much have to assume lots of people are vulnerable.
Short of giving people a course in "how to spot a scam" and "assuming everyone around you is a lying bastard", it's tough to make this kind of thing go away.
But, hey, when your parents or grandparents get scammed, you can put on all of the "smug little prick" act you want to, and see if they don't tell you to fuck yourself. Or you can grow the fuck up.
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You don't need to be able to replace valves to be able to drive a car. You do need to know that you put petrol in the petrol tank, and not apple juice.
No editorial standards ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Being a Microsoft customer isn't causing people to be targeted. The callers are posting as Microsoft technicians, making it relevant only to Microsoft customers.
There's a vast difference between the two.
How to almost get scammed... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Which is a good reason to avoid outsourcing to India - then the risk will be lower - unless you have people from India working at your local helpdesk.
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Did you really think about it, or did an ingrained prejudice against offshore workers just write your post?
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Well no, but there are other reasons to not hire people from Georgia. Such as the fact that they're all racists.
I'm not sure if this counts as satire or not...
I love these guys (Score:4, Informative)
We (my wife and I) haven't gotten a call in a while, but a month ago we were getting daily calls.
We would ask them questions about exactly what part of Microsoft they work for. We would ask them what their real name was and where were they really calling from. We would echo back everything that they said to us. We would note that we only have Mac and (other) Unix systems systems in the house and then give various takes on "how could you be getting warnings from our Windows computer when we have none here". At one point, we had a contest to see how long we could keep them on the line until they got frustrated and hung up.
We haven't gotten a call in over a month.
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I remember when I was a teenager I got a call from someone trying to sell me a long-distance plan. I told her that the only time I called long-distance was when I was prank-calling the Pope. We talked for a while. It was probably the first time I really had a conversation with a woman I wasn't related to. It was good.
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I was reading through the comments to this just now and I got a call from one of these guys. I just broke out in laughter. Then I explained about the ComputerWorld article. Of course, he had nothing to say except "Thank you, sir" and then he hung up.
they tried it with my mother in law (Score:2)
She doesn't even own a computer. My (computer ignorant) wife was there and spoke to them. When they asked her to turn on the computer she said, "well if you can tell there is malware on the computer you would know whether it was on or off and already be able to access it. Do you think I am stupid?"
I have never been so proud of her.
these people are incredibly persistent (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
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First time I got one of these calls I said "I don't have Microsoft" and hung up immediately. They called back shortly. This time I said "I don't have Microsoft don't ever call me again." Both calls began with "This is Microsoft Support calling ..."
Didn't hear from them again for several months.
When that day arrived I had been having a horrible time with something (forget what) and I was pretty wound up when my phone rang "Hello this is Microsoft ..." I hit the ceiling in 50 ms. Veins popped out of my
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It didn't even feel that good. It merely felt adequate and long overdue.
Yep, but it's better than letting these despicable criminals go unchallenged. Anybody doing that for a living should absolutely not experience being treated politely and respectfully all day long.
If I have time I just mess with them (Score:2)
I kept one going for 35 minutes one day. I told the guy my version of Windows was Word 2007. I was somehow unable to figure out what a web browser was or how to open it. References I made to Safari and Finder should have cast doubt on whether I had Windows at all. Then after the frustrated (but very patient) guy got his supervisor on the phone I revealed that I didn't have Internet. They lost interest very fast after that.
My customers have ben taken a few times (Score:5, Interesting)
They are a bit smarter this time too (Score:2)
I got several calls from the last wave.
I worked them hard, even getting a few of them to admit they are just running a script for easy cash.
This wave is different. My usual "hey, let's fuck with them on the phone" techniques have been accounted for. They hang up much quicker and do not reveal much of anything. Most importantly, they will not entertain basic human conversation easily. It's either advancing the script, or they play dumb hoping you are too and things can proceed anyway, or they are gone.
I
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I damn near got one of them to quit on the spot last wave. Had him on the ropes feeling very shitty about the whole thing. One of these days, I'll get one to go, right then, just leave the phone hanging and walk out.
Fuckers.
If you can get one to kill himself onlline, please share the link to the video.
Brad Called (Score:2)
I received such a call from Brad with a D.C area code.
His goal was to get me to install remote-access software on my Windows PC.
He was genuinely confused as to why none of the commands he asked me to run weren't working on my Linux computer.
I actually saw one of these suckers. (Score:3)
I was in the local computer discount retailer standing at customer service to return a faulty tablet... The guy next to me has his computer on the counter and the lady is helping him with it ... "Yeah; it's just really really slow... I can't even load the google..." She asks "and these toolbars at the top here, did you install those on purpose?" "No, they just appeared. I can't get rid of them. I even paid $250 to have the computer cleaned of viruses and stuff!" "You did? Was it someone online that you paid to do this?" "Yeah! They called me up because they said my computer was causing problems on the internet and I paid them $250 to clean the viruses off of it but it didn't help at all."
I just turned and looked at the guy... It was weird. He didn't look like an idiot. Looked just like some kid's dad...
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While that is commendable, user training is more valuable and goes towards solving the problem instead of hiding it.
"Sorry we don't have these windows things you speak of", will be safe but "Why yes, we do have medicare, here is my SSN... " may not be.
Re:Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
In fairness, this has nothing at all to do with Microsoft, other than most people have it, and most people aren't really tech savvy.
This is just social engineering. Some guys calls up, claims to be from "tech support" or "the Windows Service Provider" and tells you a little techno-babble that sounds scary.
They don't actually have any information about you, and if pressed couldn't even tell you your IP address or even your name -- it's just a blanket approach.
But then they tell you to follow some steps to give them access to your computer, and they make some mumbling about how bad it is and attempt to either steal your files, or convince you that you need to buy some extra services.
A friends father in law got scammed with this a few years ago, and my friend was somewhat livid because he'd explicitly told them about such scams and to hang up on anybody who is telling you that. But people don't know that Microsoft doesn't really have your phone number and aren't monitoring your system.
If you know that 80% of everyone is running Windows, and most of them don't really have a good understanding of what's going on, all you think is some friendly guy is contacting you to solve problems you didn't even know you had. It's just like spam, hit enough people and some fraction will fall for it.
I've actually spent the last 5+ years explaining to my parents how to spot a scam, why they should never trust someone who calls them, and to be generally skeptical of such things. I've managed to turn my parents into somewhat skeptical, and a lot more street smart people by hammering home some of this stuff. But I had a great aunt who was a lot more trusting and got scammed several times.
And since every time someone tries to implement a Do Not Call list, the lobbyists cry "but what about our business model" and the protections get weakened to the point of being meaningless.
And since everyone can fake their phone number (which to me is a huge part of the problem) people see something on their call display and believe it. Which means some douchebag is whateverthefuckistan can call you and look like anything they want to, and the phone companies and the companies who believe it's their right to call you exploit that.
I've actually set my Panasonic cordless phone to say "Unknown caller id means hang up", "Private caller means hang up". I still get stuff that gets through (when you see a local number and hear a long distance ring) -- but I start out with the assumption that I don't trust incoming callers.
But getting everyone to understand how these scams work is hard. Getting people to overcome a belief that others are honest and good takes work.
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A friends father in law got scammed with this a few years ago, and my friend was somewhat livid because he'd explicitly told them about such scams and to hang up on anybody who is telling you that. But people don't know that Microsoft doesn't really have your phone number and aren't monitoring your system.
With all of the news coming out about the monitoring done by the government and large corporations (like Google and Microsoft), it will be interesting to see if those on the front line start getting more stories like this.
Re:Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, on linux when things don't work, I just search for my problem on google, find some website with a "fix", and then enter that command that I don't understand with root privs......
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This scam works regardless of OS.
Teamviewer (one of the software packages they'll talk you into downloading) is completely legitimate and useful software and is truly cross platform . Not just "maybe it works on Linux" but it works on Linux flawlessly.
Here, go get it and play around.
http://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/linux.aspx [teamviewer.com]
You can't fix layer 8 except through education about best practices, and that's only if the person you're teaching is willing to actually listen - a rarity.
--
BMO
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In the interest of full disclosure, the bank my loan was through was bought by a Native American tribe, after which it was operated