5 December 2010

scams going around in Canberra

| nevetsxof
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First post here….had a phone call 9pm Sat night from a very Indian sounding gentleman…’We are from official Windows Service provide, the software you have is about to expire…please pay us $60.00 and all will be well’……nice try sucker… but can you spell Linux?

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georgesgenitals11:49 am 07 Jan 11

I like it when the guys call where music plays for about 15 seconds. I gives me time to get out the guitar. I have a personal game where I try to play as many consecutive off key chords (2 beats each) in a row before they hang up. So far my best is 9.

Hey PLB, did you end up on the phone with them for long? Windows key + r brings up a box to run a program from a text command, so it was probably part of the “see that file there? it means you have a virus and need to give me money” type scam… Or maybe they wanted to get your system info so they new if you were a good target or not.

I wonder what they would say if I said my x286 was running windows 3.1? Or if I was using my iPad?

Or I should just say I am talking to them using VOIP, and that running anything will kill the phone I am talking to me on. Then tell them they need to call you back on your other line. Then give them the number for the anti spam hotline….

pink little birdie5:37 pm 08 Dec 10

I told him it gave me the blue screen of death…. 🙂 so apparently I am restarting my computer.

pink little birdie5:36 pm 08 Dec 10

he is on the phone to me now.
the connection is bad. I’m being blonde. he keep telling to press the windows key and r. and what does that do someone?

mr_wowtrousers9:08 pm 06 Dec 10

Screaming Banshee said:

“The unfortunate thing is that the people who are making the calls are just call-centre workers who are working off a script and most likely dont even know they are part of a scam.”

Horse shit. I worked with the ACCC for years and called a few of these centres. They know it’s a scam and they are willing participants. It’s like people who say “well those people in Africa need to do whatever they can to get out”. Bullshit. There are millions of people in Africa and India who are not involved with stealing and fraud.

They are fully aware, along with people running “horse betting software” scams out of the Gold Coast, that what they are doing is illegal.

Lol.

I did the “there are no computers in this house” one. The sound of confusion was priceless.

Had a call on Friday – just hung up.

This afternoon I’ve had another one – ‘Marvin from Techmi’.

Let him do 30 seconds of his script and then interrupted and said I don’t have a computer. Confused response from ‘Marvin’… and then he hung up.

Would love to try this out on one of these callers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEhAhvq9Bbw

We just let our 2 1/2 year old answer the phone now. Best call filter I’ve ever had.

troll-sniffer11:44 am 06 Dec 10

I no longer get any calls. Admittedly I am on the Do Not Call list but that wouldn’t make any difference to scammers…

For a couple of years I have simply said “Can you hold on for a second” and before they have time to reply I throw the handset on the couch and wander off to continue what I was doing. Come back 5 or so minutes later, no-one on the line!

I had a woman from Accor Hotels who took offence at this approach and tried to wear me down with nightly phone calls, but after a week or so even she gave up.

Works a treat, has the advantage of wasting their time because they can never be sure I won’t come back, and only wastes about 3-4 seconds of my valuable time for each new occurrence.

Here is another way to deal with them: http://www.mocs.com.au/pages/telescammers.php

colourful sydney racing identity8:50 am 06 Dec 10

cleo said :

just goes to show how dumb they and think that I’m ever dumber!

poolroom!

Screaming Banshee # 5

Of course they know what they are doing, when I had a call from them, I asked where they were ringing from, she said Brisbane, so I asked for the telephone number there, of course it was wrong, so I said to her you have too many digits, so she asked another operator and she gave me another number, of course it wasn’t Brisbane, just goes to show how dumb they and think that I’m ever dumber!

Mr Lubberlubber8:16 pm 05 Dec 10

Pommy bastard said :

Slashor said :

I was disappointed when they called. I had heard of the scam beforehand and would have loved to spent as long as possible wasting their time but had someone to be. 🙁

Who?

Nice pickup. I enjoyed that one!

Grrrr said :

Website addresses for these guys come and go, and they don’t all want you to download a malware-laden file. Some simply want to sell you tech-support you don’t want or need.

I don’t need it to be valid forever and always, just valid for long enough to look around it and work out who is doing what.
I’ve heard of the “give us a credit card now and we can help you” and the “download and run this file, it will help” variants, but the accessing a website and running the file one should have some kind of usable information from my perspective.
(and in lieu of someone releasing 09-10 poker machine figures, following a digital breadcrumb trail will have to satisfy my curiosity/boredom while I’m housebound…)

creative_canberran5:06 pm 05 Dec 10

If you really want to mess them around, just have this ready on the computer.
http://www.realmofdarkness.net/pranks/arnold-soundboards.htm

Loading one of these and sending back nonsensical responses, it’s amazing how long you can string them along.

We’ve had the phone calls 3 or 4 times now. Each time the script has been slightly different. The last one I passed over to my other half who is in IT. He’s been hanging out for one of these calls. He dealt with that one in a somewhat creative way. Next time I’ll try the LINUX line. I like the sound of that.

Skidbladnir said :

They want you in front of the computer so you can go to a website, and download a file.

A beer at the next RA event for whoever can provide this thread with both website and file (without running it, of course).

Website addresses for these guys come and go, and they don’t all want you to download a malware-laden file. Some simply want to sell you tech-support you don’t want or need.

I had one of the latter calls – the “run prefetch, how many files do you see? that means you have a virus and need to buy tech support from us” call. I played along for a while, got transferred to someone else, then when they asked me for my credit card number I told them I didn’t have one. The person I was talking to angrily complained to the first person “this is all your fault” then they hung up.

My dad does a funny trick where by he tells the caller “hold on I have something on the stove” puts the phone down and leaves it. He came back 10 min later and picked the phone up once and they were still there.

I love to say yes to any call centre callers. No matter what question they ask, I just keep saying yes. Some of them take a very long time to work out I am just stringing them along. The guy the other night got quite annoyed and asked me if I was just going to waste his time, why did I answer the phone. Got a laugh out of that one.

They’re after seniors and parents who are so clueless they’ll accept a virus in the name of getting rid of one, or whose ‘children understand all this computer stuff, my son will come by later and show me what you mean once he connects his wi-fi to the Google for me‘.

String them along, get them talking.
They want you in front of the computer so you can go to a website, and download a file.

A beer at the next RA event for whoever can provide this thread with both website and file (without running it, of course).
I haven’t received the call recently, but my olds have and just hung up once they realised they were talking to India. Now I’m curious

Another Linux user here. I’ve been longing for one of these calls so I can string them along. And yes, the Fake Name Generator is a brilliant way to play with these bastards!

Deano said :

The Fake Name Generator is the tool of choice here. Ask them if they can also provide software or hardware upgrades, and bill the whole thing to a valid sounding but fake name and credit card number.

I just tried that fake name generator thing and it came up with me being a 82 year old with an occupation of “Earth Driller”. However it did give other details that could be believable (as believable as this scam anyway).

We had two calls last fortnight and the folks had one.

I had tech services ring wanting to know if we had a computer problem. We do, our H key is missing. We talked for several minutes. In the end I was demanding he send us a new H key. He wanted me to be sitting in front of the computer, with it turned on. This all takes time. Eventually I said the wrong word and he got the shits and hung up. The word was LINUX.

Anyone got a spare H key.

Pommy bastard12:10 pm 05 Dec 10

Slashor said :

I was disappointed when they called. I had heard of the scam beforehand and would have loved to spent as long as possible wasting their time but had someone to be. 🙁

Who?

I haven’t had the ‘joy’ of this phonecall yet. But I have been getting a weird one recently- I answer, and all I heard is a pre-recorded woman’s voice (American) saying “goodbye” and then it hangs up. wtf?! I’ve gotten it 3 times over the past two weeks.

yeah, they called me too. I told them that I am an IT person. Hung up pretty quick.

Had the same experience a fortnight ago. Asked the (female) caller: “If you’re able to analyse my machine, is it a PC or a Mac”? I hoped to string her along so I could identify the company, but she hung (hanged?) up.

Maybe the same mob ringing up recently and claiming to be from the WA government revenue office, with $4000 that is yours – you just need to deposit $99 into an account to enable the transfer. hahaha, no.

(they knew ALL my personal details though, which really annoys me)

A friend responded, “You are lying because I am using linux” and got an immediate hang up.

http://www.scamwatch.gov.au/ doesn’t list it as a scam, probably because all they do is place a key logger on your (windows) machine. Maybe there is some other site for this sort scam.

I wonder what sort of success rate they have.

Rawhide Kid Part310:14 am 05 Dec 10

I just tell them that the call is being recorded and traced. They hang up quick smart.

screaming banshee9:28 am 05 Dec 10

The unfortunate thing is that the people who are making the calls are just call-centre workers who are working off a script and most likely dont even know they are part of a scam.

Provided you have the time available the best thing you can do is keep them on the phone as long as possible leading them on. If you hang up on them right away they move on and the next person they call might be the gullible one.

If their ROI is low enough because savvy people keep wasting their time….perhaps they’ll stop.

The Fake Name Generator is the tool of choice here. Ask them if they can also provide software or hardware upgrades, and bill the whole thing to a valid sounding but fake name and credit card number.

I was disappointed when they called. I had heard of the scam beforehand and would have loved to spent as long as possible wasting their time but had someone to be. 🙁 It is amusing because they work from a strict script so none of my questions ever really got answered. The conversation ended after I pointed out this was a scam and that he and I both knew this.

You should ask them if they can help you compile Gentoo.

Had the exact same call a couple of months ago. It’s been discussed before here.

I told them, if they knew there was something wrong with my computer, then surely they know some info about myself and my computer.

The Indian woman kept avioding the questions and just kept telling me to go to my computer. After about 2 mins of pushing her, she hung up.

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