Windows scam phone calls

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Harrison

Harrison

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Has anyone else been getting more of these recently? I've had 4 calls from these Indian scam call centres in the past couple of weeks.

My wife answered the last one and played really dumb, with the woman asking her to turn the computer on, and my wife asking how to do that. They gave up in the end and just hung up.

If you don't know about these calls. They say they are calling on behalf of Microsoft support, saying that their software has detected issues with your Windows installation. They then ask if you can run through a series of steps with them on the computer to fix it. What they are really doing is setting your computer up for remote access so they can then steal any information on it.

How are we going to stop these scam artists? And for that matter Indian call centres. I can block a whole county's ip address range on a server, so why can't we do the same for phone numbers?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
Ah these things again. :thumbsdown:

Scammers... Like all large asses, they're always a'round. :picard
 
I got one of these early yesterday morning (6:30am!)

It went

Him: "Hello, my name is....... Tim, yes that's it Tim and i'm calling from Microsoft Security Ltd"

Me: "F**k off Tim... Yes that's it, Tim!" and i went back to sleep!

I mean come on, if you're gonna try and scam me at least practice getting the name right before ringing me instead of pausing for a good 10 seconds then reassuring yourself of the fake name!
 
i ask who they are calling for.
if they cant tell me then i hang up..

If they can get my last name they then need to get my 1st name right or atleast the initial..
this is easily accomplished by asking "which mr xxxxxx"

and then after i have wasted theire time a bit i tell them im busy now and hang up.:thumbsup:

and i do that to every phone call from a call center "scam or not"
 
Harrison said:
... I can block a whole county's ip address range on a server, so why can't we do the same for phone numbers?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...


Because there's money to be made out of the solutions to temporarily block them. e.g. you can buy a gadget to for about £70 to stop them but it's no guarantee, then a few months or couple of years later another blocking product comes along, or even a re-subscription to pay for the same device/software. Makes you wonder if the companies that sell these blocking devices are paying the people to run the scams.

I had one of these calls about 4 months ago and told the guy he was a scammer and criminal and he had the nerve to say that I shouldn't talk to him.

It should be made law that any incoming international call must carry a carrier signal which gives the caller's number. If they are a real company then they don't need to hide their number. The same should also be imposed on UK companies and market researchers. Just-my opinion.
 
Ed.D said:
It should be made law that any incoming international call must carry a carrier signal which gives the caller's number. If they are a real company then they don't need to hide their number. The same should also be imposed on UK companies and market researchers. Just-my opinion.
Click to expand...


+1 :thumbsup:
 
I have a good one. Next time one of these Tims "... now are you certain your name is Tim? It's not Tom by any chance?" calls, pretend to do exactly as they instruct, while actually doing nothing and let them wonder why they can't get connected. Maybe even offer to take a remote connection to his computer and really mess it up. :lol:
 
Unfortunately with running a part time business I have to answer the phone just in case it's a job coming in.

But when the double glazing salesman etc call I say "just a minute please" and put the phone down on the table and leave it there for an hour and then hang up.

It doesn't stop them ringing again but I feel better. They are then stuck there behind their desk unable to make a call to anybody else until I disconnect the call.

Dave G :cool:
 
yeah i used to get these alot,there is a way to stop alot of these cold callers i cant remember what i had to do now i just rang a number and a good percentage of them stopped.
 
Sadly international calls don't fall within the UK preference call services, so they are free to do what they like.

I found an article by the guardian yesterday. They did a lot of research into this and uncovered that all the call centres being used were located in one region in India, and they think a single person is behind out all. Microsoft have been trying to get them closed down, but their power is limited to misrepresentation and use of the name. People have however been arrested in the USA relating to this in the last few months, but it doesn't seem to stop it.

These call centres are targeting all English speaking countries including UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. I would be invested to know if any of our members in none English speaking countries have had such calls, of if indeed they are purely targeting English speaking countries.

Even with normal call centres they can never pronounce my surname correctly, so I say the person (using their version) doesn't live here.

Has anyone tried to create a petition to ban Indian call centres? I don't think I know a single person who wouldn't sign it. Would instantly create more jobs back in each country.

Worst call centre for me though was my milkman. My wife tried to get our milk delivery changed to our other address but when she rang them it was a call centre in the Philippines and they couldn't do it. The milk man only lives 2 miles away. Is mad.

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The best thing about living in a non-english speaking country: Helplines really are in your country and these scams don't happen either, just because India / Pakistan / Wherever only do English.

My father (in Ireland) gets tonnes of these scams. As he's retired and sometimes has nothing better to do, he keeps them guessing for a while, playing dumb, before announcing (after 20 minutes), that he thinks it's great that Microsoft spends so much time and resources fixing his PC even though it's running Linux :D They usually hang up immediately after that, although one gave him an earful of abuse for wasting HIS time! :D

Bryce.
 
No such calls in Finland either. It takes years to master Finnish so that you can't make out the foreign accent. I've got a few "free underpants" and "gift magazine subscription" calls where the caller has clearly been one that doesn't speak Finnish as native tongue, probably Estonian.

Harrison said:
Worst call centre for me though was my milkman. My wife tried to get our milk delivery changed to our other address but when she rang them it was a call centre in the Philippines and they couldn't do it. The milk man only lives 2 miles away. Is mad.
Click to expand...
Can't you just leave a note into the empty bottle? :lol: Here we don't have such luxury. We have to buy our milk in cartons from the grocery shop. :)
 
You would imagine so, but no, has to be official. We did try a note and they delivered to the other address for a day then went back to delivering to the other address. Madness. We also have nightmares changing delivery amounts.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
Yea, had that in The Netherlands a few months ago.. Knew right away what he wanted so toyed around with him and said I do not have a windows key but an 'A' key.. After 5 minutes he asked me.. I don't understand.. You speak of workbench .. What is that.. I tried to explain him.. I said it is an Amiga.. Ah what?? An Amiga.. Remember.. When computers were fun?? He then asked me if i had another computer.. Sure.. Same thing all over with the MacBook.. No Run or Windows key but a Command Key.. Oh oh.. That is a Mac then.. I said yes and now I had my giggles and you can f**** off you scamming little A hole :-)
 
I've been reading that some people in the US have been conned out of $500+ These people really shouldn't be using a computer themselves to believe these calls, but as always it's the elderly our less computer literate that get caught as they get so worried that the callers is telling the truth. With recent arrests and seizure of millions from the scam they are hoping to reimburse the conned public.

It's also a really simple con. Make the user access their computer and look at the event history. you can guarantee there will be a few yellow explanation marks, and maybe a few red errors in the list, which is normal, but to anyone not knowing what they are looking at they are worried.

They then make the person visit a url and download some remote access software, and then begin their "magic" stealing what info they can from your pc.

And once complete they say the "customer" has to pay for the service provided and state it's in the hundreds. Some even conned into signing up to a renewable licence.

I'm so tempted to setup a dummy pc for them to access next time they ring. Add some nice surprise payloads they can trigger that will actually test their real abilities to fix an infected pc, hoping it will spread around their network first.

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Did you also know the reason their call centres can afford to keep calling us in the UK and other countries is because they all use a local rate phone line connected to a voice over ip system, so it's not actually costing them anything for the length of call, other than obviously wasting their time.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
I think i will now only speak welsh to these people when they call.
 
Harrison said:
Did you also know the reason their call centres can afford to keep calling us in the UK and other countries is because they all use a local rate phone line connected to a voice over ip system, so it's not actually costing them anything for the length of call, other than obviously wasting their time.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...

I knew about VOIP but no I didn't know it was used in this way but it explains everything. Very very clever. Thanks for sharing.
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
 
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