VERY Important --- Internet Scam --- Do not fall for it!

J

JCitron

Trainzing since 12-2003
Everyone!

Please be aware of the following internet scam going around these days.

http://countermeasures.trendmicro.eu/an-unwanted-favour-from-india/

The caller states they are from Microsoft, or some other technical organisation, and have reports that your machine is infected with viruses.

After having you check the Event Viewer logs and other files, they then want to connect you to a technician.

Under no circumstances allow them to access your computer

Their purpose is to steal information from you, scam you out of money because they're accessing your PC, etc.

So don't fall for this scam. I just read about this today and notified the Global IT department where I work.

I know this probably should have been posted in the computer support forum, but I wanted visibility to this thread.

John
 
Interesting. I just looked up "Indian Swear Words" and found an excellent site - I was going to post a link but feared I might fall foul of the Mods. :hehe:
Thanks for drawing our attention to this.
 
Hi John.
Thanks for the posting, but I felt I should inform members that the scam is also going on in the UK as well and is probably worldwide.

A colleague of mine advised that his sons wife received a call very similar to the one you describe only last week where after a number of questions the caller asked if he could access the family computer which luckily was not switched on at the time. She advised that she was about to go out and did not have the time to boot the computer as this would make her late picking up her children from school.

Had it not been for the above she might well have given him access as she said the caller sounded very genuine with an accent and approach similar to someone calling from a far Eastern call center. who knows what might have happened had she acceded to his request.

Her husband realized the possibility of a scam later when on checking he found the phone number of the caller had been withheld. The advice for everybody to be very wary is therefore well-founded.

Bill.:(
 
They called my father (asked for him by name) said they where from Microsoft and they sounded very convincing to him , luckily though I was there and my father asked me to take over the call .

Bloke on the other end tried his best to try and convince me that the computer was virused up , this being the same computer I'd just been using with no problems !!

I asked the caller to tell me who my Internet provider was and he couldn't , I then asked him what version of windows I was using he couldn't , I then asked him which machine was virused up as there was more than one in the house (other 2 hadn't been connected to the net for at least 2 weeks) and he couldn't , Finally I asked if he knew so much about my machine then he could tell me what brand of anti-virus I was using ....

he replied

" I don't know what brand you are using !! You so smart you tell me what brand I'm using !!!"

After much laughter from my end he then started to get angry with me down the phone
"You put other person on I was speaking to before"
this was repeated over and over as if his life or wage's depended on it !!

"I'm sorry that person has gone out and please don't call this number again" down went the phone .

I did 1471 and there was an actual number (not withheld) so I passed this onto my fathers telephone/Internet provider who where most grateful for the number.
 
I have had 2 calls here in Aussie and lucky for the first one I just hung up when he started talking about computers. By the time I had the second one I had been informed of this scam so he got abused for a few minutes. I enjoyed that :):hehe: :Y::clap:

It has been here in Aussie for some months now and mentioned on our news reports.

Craig
:):):)
 
I absolutely LOVE cold calls like that. I've been a computer professional for over 45 years. and easily outmaneuver them with 'techspeak' until they haven't a clue what I'm talking about. Usually it's them that hang up.

The trick is to keep them on the line long enough so that they waste their time. Adding a couple clicks and buzzes on the line makes them really paranoid you're tracing them.

Bill
 
A friend had one of these calls but asked them to ring back later. She then contacted me and I took the call. It was very interesting and also very convincing. They asked me to check the Windows error log and then started telling me what was there. To someone not so savvy, they could have been lead to believe these people knew what they were talking about.

They actually spent a half an hour trying to convince me to sign up. They used the excuse that they worked in conjunction with Microsoft and monitored all computers using the Internet. I hope the half hour call was at premium rates.
 
I've heard a lot about that scam - according to the computer magazine I read (Computeractive), a few weeks after the scam started Microsoft started to look into taking legal action against the cold callers - I haven't heard any more on that.

As said before though, if you get one of those calls, do not visit the website mentioned in the call as it is likely to give them control of your system as well as admin rights. The simplest thing to do is simply hang up, and check the number. If it's not withheld, report the number to your telephone company and they may be able to block it.

Shane
 
I hung around because i was interested in what they had to say. The scam wasn't widely known at the time so I wanted to learn as much as I could.

The easiest way to dispose of these people is to tell them you employ an IT professional and he'll attend to the problem - if any.

They don't need trouble when there's thousands of suckers around.
 
JCitron said:
Everyone!

Please be aware of the following internet scam going around these days.

http://countermeasures.trendmicro.eu/an-unwanted-favour-from-india/

The caller states they are from Microsoft, or some other technical organisation, and have reports that your machine is infected with viruses.

After having you check the Event Viewer logs and other files, they then want to connect you to a technician.

Under no circumstances allow them to access your computer

Their purpose is to steal information from you, scam you out of money because they're accessing your PC, etc.

So don't fall for this scam. I just read about this today and notified the Global IT department where I work.

I know this probably should have been posted in the computer support forum, but I wanted visibility to this thread.

John
Click to expand...

Well i'll be darned... I saw that scam today. Evil thing it is. :eek:
 
shaneturner12 said:
I've heard a lot about that scam - according to the computer magazine I read (Computeractive), a few weeks after the scam started Microsoft started to look into taking legal action against the cold callers - I haven't heard any more on that.

As said before though, if you get one of those calls, do not visit the website mentioned in the call as it is likely to give them control of your system as well as admin rights. The simplest thing to do is simply hang up, and check the number. If it's not withheld, report the number to your telephone company and they may be able to block it.

Shane
Click to expand...

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2266408/microsoft-considering-legal
 
Thats the one!

At least Microsoft are taking it seriously - as I always have said to people, the best thing to do is not to give them any details and simply put the phone down.

Shane
 
I'm glad you guys are on to these characters.

I'm sure it's not over yet. They'll try some other scheme to try for the same thing.

John
 
Johnk said:
They don't need trouble when there's thousands of suckers around.
Click to expand...

Hi Everybody.
A person hasn't got to be" a sucker" to be caught in a scam like this. I very often go out of the house and leave my laptop or main PC running. My wife has very different hobbies and interest to me and only uses either one of the computers if she is looking up something on the Internet connected with her interests and that is not very often.

She has knowledge enough to know how to operate a computer and she is a very good typist. However, her interests does not involve reading forums such as this one or to be involved in Trainz or any other game. She does occasionally look at book reviews or cooking recipes but that is about it.

So if someone involved in this scam had rung while I was out she might well of thought it was someone involved with me, or possibly someone I had contacted due to problems with one of the computers. In that case she might have given them access just by clicking on a link as they are requesting.

I've been married to my wife or for the 40 years and I know from long experience she is certainly "no sucker". It is very easy to prejudge and advise that people who get caught in this scam or other similar scams do so because they are naïve. That may well be in some cases, but you have to look at the perceived situation the receiver of the call find themselves in at the time.

The perpetrators of this type of crime only have to find one person in 100 who is in a hurry or believes that this is a call related to something involving there partners and the criminals are in.

Not everybody is a computer expert. Not everybody reads forums such as this. Not everybody has such an un-trusting nature as many on this forum and perhaps that is not such a bad thing in everyday life.

Bill
 
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Two best way's not to fall for scams is not to answer the phone,let the answering machine do it and don't open any e-mail that you don't know who it is from. Real simple.
:D
 
Alco_P-A said:
Two best way's not to fall for scams is not to answer the phone,let the answering machine do it and don't open any e-mail that you don't know who it is from. Real simple.
:D
Click to expand...

Not the answer the phone is not allways the best thing. It might be a phone call from someone you do know it might be a call from your bank.
 
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