Key Post SCAM: Cold caller from India pretends to be from Windows offers to fix your computer.

This morning I got a phone call at home from an Indian sounding man and number unavailable came on the screen of my home telephone.

He knew my name. He said he understood I was having slow speeds on my computer and wanted to help.

As i had just ordered an upgrade from Eircom to my broadband speed last week I assumed it was them.

However when I asked him what company he works for he said a name I cant remember and said they were approved Microsoft agents.

I told him I had not complained to Microsoft and he said I am here to help and demanded I turn on my computer and he would speed up my computer by going to a certain website. I said this sounds like some sort of scam and he got a little annoyed and again suggested I turn on my computer and that when I see the improvements I would know its not a scam.

I politely told him no thanks and he said okay thank you for your time and hung up.

Sounds like a scam of some sort to me.Has anyone else had this type of call.

Most definitely a scam (in my opinion)

More than likely, he would have managed to get all your passwords, personal details, bank details if you have them stored on your computer etc.

Anything speeding up your PC from a website is a scam:

[broken link removed]

Sound familiar?

Add scam #17 to your list: guys calling to trick you into installing a virus on your computer. Got my first such phone call today, from what sounded like an offshore (Indian) boiler room operation; "Unknown Caller" on the caller-id of course.

The guy pretended to be tech support from my internet service provider, and said he wanted to help me speed up my computer. I asked him if [some fictitious company I just made up] had sent him; he said "yes". Scammer fer sure.

He asked me to fire up my computer and go to a web site that he painstakingly read out for me: <site deleted by mod all the w's.f1compstepuk.com>: . To string him along, I made him spell it out for me half a dozen times, while I did a WHOIS on the site registration: sure enough, the URL was registered to a bogus-looking mailing address in India.

To further stall for time, I asked him where he was. The guy said "237 5th Avenue in New York." Having lived in New York City, I knew that address was in lower Manhattan, so I started asking him how he liked working on the upper west side. Unsurprisingly, the scammer said it was fine. No way that dude had ever been to NYC.

After playing with the scammer a while, I eventually brought up the web site he'd asked me to open: <site deleted by mod all the w's.f1compstepuk.com> . But, since I was pretty sure by then that web site would turn out to be a toxic rat's nest of malware, I took the precaution of using TOR (so they couldn't trace my IP address) and used a locked-down version of Firefox with Java, Javascript and Flash turned off (so that the site wouldn't be able to auto-run any software on my machine).

Once I told the scammer I was on his web site, he instructed me to click on the pretty "Remote Assistance" icon that was prominently featured on the site. Looking at the icon, I noticed that clicking it would cause me to download some Setup.EXE file. Probably a program that would give him remote control of my machine, or, at a minimum, install a virus that skimmed off my passwords, credit card numbers, and online banking information.

I decided to quit playing along at this point. I told the scammer that I was surfing using my iPhone, so I couldn't run his program. That seemed to throw him, so he put me on hold to talk to his "supervisor"; after a minute, he came back and said that he couldn't help me, but that an iPhone specialist would call back to help me (sure).

In all, an interesting but scary new kind of phone scam. I'm sure they have a pretty decent success rate.

I read a similar story on another forum, so the scammers must be doing the rounds of Irish phone numbers at the moment!

WARNING! Fake tech support call scam - Windows XP service provider | www.computerhq.co.uk


If you google "Fake tech support call scam" you will get many hits.


Gippiman, would you have a link to the other irish sites? Thanks

aj

Variant 1

You get a call, and when answer there is a ringing tone, (they are using a 'call back' system which could be charging you for the call)

The phone will be answered and the call scripts they use normally follows the following formats:


“Hello Mr Blogs, this is your Windows XP service provider - we have had a report from your computer that it is infected”.


“Hello Mr Blogs, this is your Windows XP service provider - we have had a report from your computer that it is running slow”.

“Hello Mr Blogs, this is your Windows XP service provider - we have had a report from your computer that it is about to crash and loss all your data”.


These are the few that we have heard about but there are many other variants.


They will then ask you to type in some commands that will bring up various files on your machine, they will then claim your machine is infected. The commands they ask you to enter are:

Go to the start>run menu and type in “prefetch virus” in the run prompt

INFO: This folder is used to help decrease loading times of programs on your computer, cleaning out this folder can affect the performance on your machine, and there will always be files in this folder.

Go to the start>run menu and type in “temp” in the run prompt

INFO: This is where temporary files are placed on your machine when installing or running programs, a large number of these files in this directory does not mean your machine is infected.

Once they have told (or convinced) you how infected your machine is they will then ask you to login to a specific website (normally www.logmein123.com) so that they can remotely connect to your machine and take control of it and fix your problem, they will also tell cost you a one time fee of £12(they use a low amount so that you think you are getting a great deal and that you will be less likely to try and claim it back). All the time they will be re-assuring you that they are your “Windows XP service provider” and that they were told by your machine that it has a problem. They will also tell you that they are based somewhere in the UK, normally Bradford.

Once they have access to your machine they can and do cause damage to your machine. Various reports of this scam on the internet have people loosing important files and having their machine infected with a virus from the tools they supposedly use to remove viruses.

As they have used a call back system they can claim that you phoned them for this support, and they use this as an excuse to get a bit pushy on the phone with you. Remember if they can not convince you to pay them for the supposed fix, they are still making money off your phone call.

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ajapale said:

would you have a link to the other irish sites?

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I don't know if this is the same one that gipimann saw, but here's one on boards.ie Weird phone call! "online pc doctor".

If you look at the last page, it has posts from the past few days so they're obviously working their way through Irish numbers at the moment.

No, the one on boards wasn't where I read it.

Here's the story as told on

I got the same call, caller wasn't too happy when I said I'd never heard of them, had certainly never signed up to them and wouldn't be turning on pc.

Rang telephone provider and they had received a few calls that day re same.

For info and to be aware, the number I received the call from was:-
001194766321,
Bee

My MIL got 2 of these calls last week. When she told him she didn't have time he said he would ring back in 10 mins which he did. She is unsure how they got her name and number though. I thought it may have been the phone book but she was never listed under her married name which is what the caller had.

I told her if they rang again to give them my number so I could take the p!ss a bit with them.

Scam: Cold Caller re line speed

I had a similar call (no. unavailable) from Asian guy who started with "Hello Mr Julius". I replied that he must have a wrong number and then he said that they understood that the line speed on my phone line was not good. I asked him who he was calling from amd he said Microsoft. I then hung up.
Last week I had phoned Eircom to ask them to check my broadband line speed. Is it purely a coincidence that I got this bogus call

Julius said:

Is it purely a coincidence that I got this bogus call ?

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yes. They call thousands of people. They will hit a few who will have had recent discussion with their broadband provider.

I was having ongoing discussions on a topic with my bank, AIB. Then I got an email from them. I was just about to open it, when I realised - they don't communicate with me by email. Again, it was just a lucky strike. You are thinking AIB - you get an email from them - your respond without thinking. I had always thought people would have to be stupid to be scammed, but I can see how it could happen.

I have sent an email with a link to this post to many of my contacts.

The Irish Times has an article on this today -

"[broken link removed]"

Calls seem to originate in India and the caller claims to be a "PC doctor" often working for "Windows" or they are a "Microsoft agent".

This scam has also been highlighted on the National Consumer Agency's website - consumerconnect.ie
http://www.consumerconnect.ie/eng/News_+_Research/Press%20Releases/Consumers_warned_about_'PC_problem'_scam_calls.html

Consumers warned about 'PC problem' scam calls

26 May 2010
The National Consumer Agency's helpline has recently received a series of complaints about cold calls claiming to come from an online service that fixes problems with PCs.

The callers claim that your PC has a virus, system crash or similar problem. They may also insist that they got your contact details because you completed an online questionnaire, even though you know, or strongly believe, that you did not.

They then say they can resolve the "problem" with your PC remotely - if you give them your credit card details and/or remote access to your PC.

Sometimes the callers give a website address which is very similar to the address of a genuine company. For example they may give onlinedoctors.com (with an "s"), although there is a well-established business with the address www.onlinepcdoctor.com (with no "s" in the name).

Always be wary of these kinds of calls. A legitimate business would be very unlikely to know about problems that you have with your PC without your knowledge.
The NCA is aware that a legitimate company called pccare.ie has reported the matter to the Gardaí, while www.onlinepcdoctor.com has posted a warning about its site being spoofed and pointing out that it does not make cold calls.

The NCA urges consumers to be extremely cautious about giving credit card details over the phone to strangers - particularly to a business that you have never heard of before and that has initiated contact with you, rather than you with them.

If you have lost money to this or any other type of scam, contact the Gardai.

Yes we recd this scam call yesterday....is it linked to hotmail accounts ??? as we had only the day before noticed a very dodgy e mail on that e mail account....then sure enough a call came through...BINGO !!! we thgought !!!

We are thinking of shutting down outr hotmail account !!!

I got this call yesterday.
The guy said 'I know you're having problems with your computer'. I just said I don't have time for this and hung up.

Are all the people who have received this eircom account holders for BB or is it totally random ?

I got this call. I'm an eircom BB customer. The guy got very irate when I refused to comply. I'm kinda hoping he rings back so I can mess with his head a bit!

Act really really stupid. Tell them it's your son's computer and you don't know much about it. How do I turn it on? Spend ages and then figure out "I think that this is a television and not a computer?"

It would make great radio recording a call?

My mother in law has gotten it twice. I wont tell you the response I told her to give (hehe) but I'm hoping I get as call.

Brendan Burgess said:

Act really really stupid. Tell them it's your son's computer and you don't know much about it. How do I turn it on? Spend ages and then figure out "I think that this is a television and not a computer?"

It would make great radio recording a call?

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We used to to get calls in work from some far flung land which were trying to get us to transfer our phone bills. It was some scam they transferred your number routed through premium calls and then your bills would be huge.

They kept calling from America for the Managing Director.

They kept ringing, despite being told not to, so the next time they rang I said in a really gormless voice "I am the Managing Director"

They then asked me if I had email " I don't know what an email is - whats that", then they asked if we had a fax - I said we dont have them new fangled machines.

I kept saying we have no money to pay for a fax or a phone, have pity on our souls - all our money is in the Caymen Islands in a suitcase - President Who Flung Dung in the principality of Mombo Mombo scammed me out of it - can you help me get it out? Was speaking in a gormless brain dead voice.

I wrecked his head with my complete stupidity for about 10 minutes and then he just banged down the phone.

All the office including the MD thought it was the funniest ever!