Telephone Scam

[Longboarder]

We all get sales calls on the phone which are irritating. I usually just say no thanks and put the phone down.

Yesterday I had one from microsoft about all the trojans on my computer. Well the nice Indian sounding lady said she was from microsoft. I played dumb for a while and it was quite scary. Very clever. She handed me over to a technician after I had played the idiot. He got me to fire up the lappy and open taskmanager in a weird way. Told me to look for csrss.exe and sure enough it was there. A bad trojan he said. Obviously my computer was in serious trouble!

He was very patient with me but essentially tried to get me to visit teamviewer.com, vdnoir.com or 121usahelp.com. Then download a program which would give him access to my computer. I kept getting error messages as my lappy wasn't connected to the internet. He was remarkably patient. We worked through several fixes for the internet connection and got to the conclusion that my connection was down. Spot on as Eventually he told me I will have to get BT to check the internet connection and he will phone back later.

The calls lasted 33 minutes. He waited three times while I got the lappy out first and restarted it twice! His computer knowledge was excellent. We didn't get to what I had to pay for but research shows the initial clean is about $300 and then there would have been more for a new licence to allow me to continue using XP for my lifetime.

This scam has been running since 2008 so it does work. Tell the wife, kids and any oldies so they don't get caught.

 

Nigel

[tractor]

yes i fell for similar wasn't till they asked for my bank details that the ballon dropped they were very good once they asked for bank details I knew it was a scam so same as you from that point played dumn just to waste there time

[agent_zed]

i love winding them up. I've played though a couple of them. The one of them i told them i was an IT security consultant and they knew so little they just ignored that and carried on the script?!

 

Another i pretended to go through what they wanted and they were like 'do you see the key next to the ctrl key with the flag on' and i was like 'yes but it's pointless me pressing it' and they assured me they wanted me to press it so i did. After a while i told them it was pointless as i run Linux so pressing the windows key was unlikely to do anything exciting and it was pretty surprising they were from 'microsoft' and detected a problem on my linux machine! Still took them a while to understand until i told them i wasn't going to play anymore as they were scammers.

 

The common one they do is get you to open the windows error log which unsurprisingly contains a log of errors! They'll tell you they are virus errors.

 

I get annoyed at the phone companies as they could stop this if they wanted but they make money. We get 10+ calls a day even though we are on the TPS.

[Dean Roberts]

Grrrrr....I hate phone scammers....

 

First thing you should ask them is - "Please provide photographic proof of identity or I cannot continue with this conversation"

 

Rule of thumb is that the only time you will require help from somebody is when you ask them, not the other way around.

 

example.....

I'm stuck trying to fix my wiring on my kit, so I contact RHOCaR for help.

RHOCaR never contact me in advance to do my wiring and then charge me.

 

But I must admit scammers on email are getting very inventive these days and even I have to double check everything I see.

 

Working in IT, I found the Linux VS Microsoft OS flag key a giggle.

Seriously - most of the time if they call me, I immediately ask to be removed from the database and cut them off - No other details are exchanged.

[agent_zed]

even more annoyingly most of the calls we are getting are auto-dialed and when you pick up it cuts off most of the time after a few seconds as it depends if there is actually a person free to hassle me the other end. Call hundreds of numbers at the same time and only talk to whoever answers first i guess pays for the companies doing it. grrrrr!

[Guest 2b cruising]

Just love the photo bit on the phone.

[fry61]

Caller display -- don't recognise the number -- don't pick up. Number not displayed -- don't pick up. E-mails -- my pinky deals with those very quickly -- with-out opening.

[Peter Bell]

I had a call today from an asian sounding lady saying she was from microsoft support, I laughed and said really? and she put the phone down how rude!

[Guest whiz]

I love this game especially when I'm bored. i let them run through the whole process letting them think I'm pretty thick at computing. when it comes to the point when they ask what does it say on the screen eventually after a few attempts. I say a rather few choice words then laugh my head off. I don't even run Microsoft, I'm on Apple lol

[David S]

I have a new BT phone with their call Guardian service. All numbers in my phone book get through, all others BT Call Guardian answers and tells them they have to introduce themselves. The auto diallers can't do this. It also blocks Withheld and International numbers. I get a list of the numbers that have called and then I simply block them, like you do on a mobile so they never get through again.

 

I was getting a couple of calls a day, now I don't get any. Result!!

[agent_zed]

I have a new BT phone with their call Guardian service. All numbers in my phone book get through, all others BT Call Guardian answers and tells them they have to introduce themselves. The auto diallers can't do this. It also blocks Withheld and International numbers. I get a list of the numbers that have called and then I simply block them, like you do on a mobile so they never get through again.

 

I was getting a couple of calls a day, now I don't get any. Result!!

 

Saw this on dragons den a few years ago and if i remember correctly they didn't like it. But then if you have a PA to answer your phone i guess it doesn't matter. I guess BT thought it was a good idea.

 

What annoys me about this is that it's the phone doing the work. No reason BT (or other phone companies) can't do this at source rather than selling you a phone to do it, or even a simple website to log on and block numbers. But then they wouldn't make lots of money letting people call you and then selling you something to stop it... sorry if i am a little cynical

[sj-bradley]

I have never had anyone from "microsoft" calling me. I must be Billy no-mates

 

I'd love to wind them up too.

 

Microsoft will never call you to say you have a problem. They would be forever making calls to the billions of users out there ... !

 

Simon.

[Guest peter2b2002]

Just had an email telling me they had received some emails from me that had viruses in them that would get things like my bank details pass words etc from my computer would I kindly click on this link to down load a fix . I then saw a pig flying over my head so i deleted their email

Peter2b

[Guest Bazwaz]

I just tell them to hold then put the phone by the tv and let them listen to Coronation St or whatever's on for a while then hang up.

[Shaft]

Not a phone scam but still a funny story...

I remember my late Father-in-Law spending nigh on 2 hours chatting to a double glazing salesman who'd come around after making an appointment via telephone-sales cold calling.

Once he'd chosen the frames / styles / handles / doors etc it came to signing the paper work....

My F-in-Law popped to the kitchen, returning with a Council Letter Head which he presented to the salesman explaining once they'd agreed to it work could commence!

We we're crying when he told us the next day! :rogl: