Tech Support Phone Scams

[Tom McClelland]

One that it may be worthwhile mentioning to clients and associates.

Just recently I'm seeing a huge upsurge in Tech Support phone scams. Some purporting to be from Microsoft, others purporting to be from Virgin Media. The calls come through several times a week during the day on my personal phone line. If I didn't work at home quite often I wouldn't even know it was happening.

Alarmingly these people know my name (I'm ex directory) and that I'm with Virgin Media, but obviously they never have any account details, and they never have a number that I can call them back on, and to someone tech-savvy the call is obviously a scam. To someone who isn't tech-savvy it might all sound very plausible. They always want you to switch your PC on and visit a particular site (which obviously you should never do) so that they can presumably infect your PC with some kind of download, or get you to type in CC details.

Evidently their operation is a pretty large call-centre because you can hear numerous similar calls going on in the background.

 

[Dominic Taylor]

My gran had this, fortunately she was able to say "my grandson is a computer expert, let me put you on hold while I call him" and they gave up, but she very nearly believed them. No words!

 

[Posilan]

Yes, I had one call us the other day (shows the stupidity of these scammers) - managed to keep him talking for 20 minutes

Steve

 

[Tom McClelland]

Yes, I had one call us the other day (shows the stupidity of these scammers) - managed to keep him talking for 20 minutes

Steve

I did exactly the same thing on Saturday morning. I was listening to music so I told him that I was turning the PC on, and that it takes ages, then I got all the way to logging in, and "horrors!", the imaginary PC froze, so I turned it off and on again, picking up the phone every minute or so to give a running commentary on all this imaginary activity, and after another 10 minutes or so I just disconnected the call... They called again and I just put the phone down because I'd got bored with it, and they gave up. I guess they realised at that point that I was scamming them.

 

[RemoteTechs]

Unfortunately nothing new, we even have them try and call us.... and we are a Tech Support company!!!

On a person level it really annoys us as it makes our industry look like its full of crooks and con men, we spend a fair amount of time each month helping out people that have been victims of these types of scams, we have a page with some good advice http://www.remotetechs.co.uk/scam_notice.php

We also work closely with the Get Safe Online scheme to report these companies when we come across them, there are some links on our site.

We are sorry to hear that people have been scammed by these B*strds, but there are also some decent people in the industry too!

 

[pcproblems]

The virgin media slant is new to me although, as you now know, these scams have been taking place for ages. I often get calls asking if these scammers are for real and I wrote a few words about it here > http://www.salisbury-computer-repairs.co.uk/windows-phone-scam.html

They usually have indian sounding accents and can be very persistant

 

[chip_y2kuk]

one of my clients phoned me the other day wanting to confirm it was a scam.

they where indian, claimed to be from microsoft and told her she had problems with heir computer that microsoft had sent them to fix

luckily she told them she'd have her it guy sort it for her if they would tell her what was up (the call centre then sharply put the phone down)

joe

 

[bigbiker]

Glad you brought this up. I got a call like that about a week ago and I'm a little worried because I gave the man access to my computer. I followed his instructions and went to logmein.com. It even looked funny after that because I was not doing anything but the cursor kept moving and clicked on several folders then he pulled up something on the screen which showed a list of supposedly viruses I got on my computer. He convinced me with that and I let him fix everything. Then paid him.

I did not suspect anything until I read about this scam in the news. Now my question is, could the scammers possibly have copied everything I have stored on my computer at such a very short time? I have everything saved there, my financial account log-ins, personal information and even contact information of the people I know.

 

[bigbiker]

By the way, I ran a copy of my credit report from all three credit bureaus and there wasn't anything wrong about my information. I also looked up the caller's phone number at this consumer protection site called Callercenter to see if there was any complaint posted against the caller but I didn't find any. Aside from that, I checked with the credit card company about suspicious charges, and zero.

I'm wondering, if that caller was a scammer, he would have used my information to his advantage right away but he didn't. Does this mean I am safe? Was that a legit call?

 

[Tom McClelland]

Pretty certain that this was the same scam.

Even if they didn't take anything off your PC at the time they could have installed software that allowed them to get into everything that you do from that PC when he said he was going to "fix everything".

So I would say that everything on that PC is now compromised. That includes emails, logins, passwords, bank account, ebay, paypal, personal information, the whole kit and caboodle.

I wish I could give you better news, but in your position I would be strongly tempted to (a) disconnect PC from internet (b) reformat its hard drive, wipe the whole thing to trash straight away (c) start again from scratch restoring your essential documents from backups taken prior to the person calling you (d) change all of your passwords.

Specialists may be able to help you with less extreme advice than that.

 

[chip_y2kuk]

I'm wondering, if that caller was a scammer, he would have used my information to his advantage right away but he didn't. Does this mean I am safe? Was that a legit call?

Was that a legit call?

answer me this.... out of the millions/billions of people that use microsoft windows OS why would micsoroft send someone to fix your computer? (they wouldn't!)

i'll tell you what's happened....

they've convined you you had a virus (which you didn't)

they've probably installed some someftware so that they can come back later

they already have your card details (i assume you gave them the details over the phone, or entered them into their software?)


did they make you pull up event viewer by any chance and show you all those errors "the virus was creating" (these are normal windows errors!)


go to youtube and type in microsoft phone scam (i'll put the best below!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuCFlR-YNdc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Te-jnS_Dq0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbnfYY1EVRg&feature=plcp

you've most definately been scammed

joe

 

[chip_y2kuk]

Pretty certain that this was the same scam.

Even if they didn't take anything off your PC at the time they could have installed software that allowed them to get into everything that you do from that PC when he said he was going to "fix everything".

So I would say that everything on that PC is now compromised. That includes emails, logins, passwords, bank account, ebay, paypal, personal information, the whole kit and caboodle.

I wish I could give you better news, but in your position I would be strongly tempted to (a) disconnect PC from internet (b) reformat its hard drive, wipe the whole thing to trash straight away (c) start again from scratch restoring your essential documents from backups taken prior to the person calling you (d) change all of your passwords.

Specialists may be able to help you with less extreme advice than that.

I'd say that's the only way to go

Secure Erase the HDD (some backdoor programs can recover plain deleted files, some programs can survive a normal format (there aren't many but better safe than sorry))
Re-format
Re-install
and restore backups as you said
and inbetween that change ALL passwords


the reason is...

backdoor's take many forms

- Rootkits can be detected by booting a secure environment (not the windows installed on the HDD)
- Keystroke loggers can be legitimate progams (so Anti-virus software won't detect them all)
- some backdoors inject VNC services which allow remote terminal's, file transfers etc etc but vnc is a legitimate program and has legitimate uses

i'm afraid you now need to treat your computer like it has the Plague (everything on it is compromised, everything you've done on it's been sold, your being watched with everything you do)

joe


p.s

if you haven't got any backups i'd say write everything off and start from scratch (it may be safe to move over certain files)

 

[pcproblems]

Here's a recording of the scam as recorded by Rory Cellan-jones at the BBC. This is from the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15690898