Fascinating story/question from JW: I’m writing in reference to what my wife & I believe to be a phone scam related to the upcoming termination of
[See the full post at: Phone scam: Win7 license is “about to expire”]
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Phone scam: Win7 license is “about to expire”
- This topic has 49 replies, 27 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 6 months ago.
AuthorViewing 22 reply threadsAuthor-
JW see this topic:
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/patch-lady-31-days-of-paranoia-day-3/
Microsoft will NEVER phone anyone regarding their OS or Software, hang up the phone.Windows - commercial by definition and now function... -
Even better, get caller ID and don’t answer it if you don’t recognize the caller or you suspect it may be a scam, as is this case it seems. Get on the Do Not Call Registry, it does help in some instances. And, Block ’em. Cover your bases.
MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS
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With Micro$oft’s recent behavior and patterns, I wouldn’t be surprised if, through 5-20 layers of veiling, they were somehow behind this LOL
Fortran, C++, R, Python, Java, Matlab, HTML, CSS, etc.... coding is fun!
A weatherman that can code1 user thanked author for this post.
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We (the wife and I) are also ‘seniors’ and we have been getting calls from “Microsoft Service” several times a week lately and the caller has an ‘accent’ that says to me they are not from the mid-west! They tell us we have security issues and we need to work with them to resolve our IP problems. I’ve taken to talking to them – however briefly – rather than just hanging up and I’ve taken to calling them liars and demanding they stop calling and I will also say they will be charged with fraud if they continue to call. Does it work? I am not sure but I have noticed the calls lately have been greatly reduced.
It is also the political season and we are getting a lot of automated calls on political topics as well as the occasional scam (maybe they are both scams?) Anyway, we now don’t bother to even answer the phone if we don’t recognize the number on caller ID. I’ve also simply turned off the ringer to the phone upstairs and it’s only for ‘outgoing’ now days.
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I would get those scamming Windows calls several times a day….daily.
I tried using a whistle but that didn’t deter them.I have one of those Lorex personal alarms and I started to use that.
I only get an occasional one now and then. (cough)
I’m thinking they don’t like the piercing sound it makes. ( ;1 user thanked author for this post.
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Most of the ones I get are recordings that are directing response to call a certain phone number. Doing something obnoxious won’t accomplish anything. If you actually interact with a live voice, it may mark you as a target for future calls, because it confirms that there’s a live person at the other end of the line.
Remember that these kinds of things (not just Microsoft scams) are computer-generated, and generally operating from outside of US jurisdiction. Thus the FCC no-call registry won’t help you. Also, assume that a person at the other end of the line probably does not have capacity (much less authority ) to “take me off your list”. They’re going to just keep calling anyway, because the cost to them is only fractionally above zero.
For whatever unsolicited calls you get, the best thing to do is simply hang up. Sometimes you can hang up before the switching equipment starts playing a recording or switches you to somebody live. If you hear a small chirp happening about 2 1/2 seconds into the call, that’s a very reliable indicator of a computer-generated call. And if you get somebody live initially, you don’t owe them anything, not even something as simple as “I’m not interested”, much less listening to their pitch. Simply press the switch hook and end the call.
For the callers that are live, even for the few that may be legitimate, being abusive doesn’t accomplish anything, and there are people who are out there that are doing that because they’re trying to earn a living. It’s a crummy job, and often the individuals at the other end of the line may be desperate to try to make ends meet on a minimum wage job. Kill the call as quickly as you can hang up, and let them go on to their next target.
Some will advocate that keeping an unsolicited call on the line may have benefit of tying up resources that can’t be used elsewhere. Unfortunately, the scale on that is so small, that it’s not going to have any significant benefit. The guys operating the boiler room operations have far more resources than you do (especially with computerized dialing) that they can keep calling, 24/7, with impunity.
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Well anonymous I’m sorry to inform you that my heart doesn’t bleed for scumbag scammers! I’m retired with more free time on my hands than “Andrew from Microsoft” that barely speaks English calling me from somewhere in Asia to help me fix my non-existing computer problems. I just absolutely love it and practically start salivating when I see “Microsoft” on my caller ID! I’ve had these morons tied up for better than a half hour on more than one occasion and once he was even patient enough to hold the line for over five minutes while I (supposedly) went to get a fresh cup of coffee after he informed me that we might be a while getting my computer’s problems straightened out.
It sends indescribable shivers up my spine when “Andrew from Microsoft” finally realizes he’s been scammed himself and starts calling me names before he hangs up on me while he’s hearing me laughing hysterically! One would think after doing this as many times as I have now that these morons would stop calling here but I still get a call every once in a great while. My wife immediately starts giggling when she sees Microsoft on the caller ID now, if I’m not right there to grab the phone myself she’ll answer and tell them to hang on while she comes to tell me that my buddy from Microsoft wants to chat with me again.
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5. We don’t use Windows, we use a MAC.
6. We don’t use Windows, we use eComStation (the modern version of IBM OS/2).
7. We are running a free 30-day trial of Windows 7, so we know that the license is about to expire. We aren’t planning on purchasing a license.
8. I’m running DOS, not Windows.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server1 user thanked author for this post.
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Oooh, I love these scam phone calls as they give me a wonderful opportunity to be scathingly sarcastic with a completely clear conscience! (Pity I don’t get as many as I used to any more.) I’m looking forward to receiving one of these Windows 7 licence scams soon. I shall say that the latest unsolicited upgrade to Windows X bricked my computer and ask them for compensation before I commence legal proceedings……………………then try not to giggle whilst they think what to say………………………..
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Phone scamming in general is out of hand. I can’t believe this stuff is allowed to not only continue happening, but actually escalate in frequency as some here are suggesting. I have caller ID on my cell and I get calls from numbers that it labels as “possible scams” as well as some other unidentified wireless callers. I *never* answer these calls. On average, it’s maybe once every week or two, but they usually come in small bursts. Sometimes, I’ll get four or five in a week and sometimes none for a week or two. All in all, it’s at tolerable levels.
I find never answering to be effective in deterring them mostly, but it’s ridiculous to me that scammers are allowed to harass people on their personal phones whenever and however often they want without penalty almost like it’s perfectly OK to everyone that has power over these matters to allow this to happen. I am sure there’s a money trail. There always is. The people profiting off of these scammer phone calls would want it to continue after all, right? They certainly wouldn’t want it to stop, that’s for sure.
So, it would not surprise me one bit if I were to hear that MS was behind these particular ones somehow and are profiting off of the successful attempts to get money out of people. That’s one way to turn a profit off of us stupid, stubborn Windows 7 users they hate so much. All speculation on my part, but nothing surprises me anymore and nothing can be dismissed outright, either.
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I shall say that the latest unsolicited upgrade to Windows X bricked my computer and ask them for compensation before I commence legal proceedings……………………then try not to giggle whilst they think what to say………………………..
They’ll probably say “Of course, we quite understand and can offer generous compensation. Please give us your bank account number and password and we’ll make an immediate transfer…”
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They never call me anymore. I wish they would.
I would have SO MUCH FUN!
(The one time they called, I DID have fun . . . perhaps I am blacklisted on the scammers list?)
~ Group "Weekend" ~
1 user thanked author for this post.
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I have done it myself, then wondered why I enjoyed it so much. And why it took me a half hour to get back to other things.
That’s worth thinking about. I’m retired now, too, but I still feel that anger shortens life and life is short enough as it is. And I still have a lot I want to do.
I’d rather see the authorities do their job and put some phone scammers in prison for long terms. Extradite some of them from our “allies” just to make the point. The wonder is that none of our supposedly clever politicians has thought of this. It would be outrageously popular. And it would be the right thing to do.
While I wrote this the phone lit up again with a caller ID that calls me every evening about this time and is then stopped by Nomorobo.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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Amazing how that works!
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server1 user thanked author for this post.
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..and my I.P. Address changed somehow anyhow (because I called a different phone number on v.92)!
Important links you can use, without the monetization pitch = https://pqrs-ltd.xyz/bookmark4.html
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“Microsoft” and the “Tax Office” etc. don’t seem to call me anymore.
I don’t know much about scammers in Australia, but do know that some of them who successfully cheated many people here in the USA supposedly won’t be doing in again for quite a while:
Some years ago, I found on my answering machine a nearly complete message with one of the “IRS” calls, and only out of curiosity, googled the number given in the message; many other people also had done so, and had also left ‘appropriate’ messages about the creeps.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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For those of you thinking of engaging scammers on the phone, consider this food for thought…
How many words / syllables do you think it might take to have enough recorded audio data to cut up your voice responses digitally and reassemble them to be able to answer virtually any question in your voice? Now imagine someone armed with a program to do that, along with some personal data about you, say, derived from a big data breach, calling someone who matters in what sounds like your voice. Don’t say anything to scammers. If you answer at all, just hang up on them. And only ever answer the phone with just “Hello?” once, not “Hello, <name> speaking…”, even though the latter may sound more professional. Anyone worth talking to won’t think just saying “Hello?” is bad.
And never, ever give anyone who has called you personal or sensitive or financial information, even if they have some about you already and sound legitimate. Seriously. Take a message, look up the number yourself and call back if you are convinced it’s a legitimate call.
Don’t fall for a caller asking “Hello?” back to you. Anyone doing that is looking to turn things around on you and make you feel, subconsciously, that you called them and that you’ve invested in the call. Just hang up if someone does that to you. It’s almost certainly a spam/scam call. When someone calls you it is not the time to be polite or go out of your way to try to establish a conversation.
Never forget – with any telephone caller – that it’s they who chose to call you and chew up your time, the most precious commodity you have in this universe! Start with a premise that you don’t owe a caller a darned thing and they need to prove to you that it’s worth your time to talk with them, and you will be on good footing.
-Noel
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Noel,
there has been some discussion recently on places like the Whirlpool forums where people have been advised not to answer “yes” to any questions put to them by unsolicited callers.
Some believe that the callers are recording “yes” replies and then doing a bit of audio trickery to make it sound like people are saying “yes” to things like changing phone and Internet providers, signing up for new contracts, etc.
Not sure if this has been proven but I wouldn’t be surprised with all the shenanigans going on these days.
3 users thanked author for this post.
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No-one who matters knows my voice! Somehow I can’t imagine the scammers who in their naivety have kept ringing me up pulling off anything like as complex as that. They clearly haven’t got a lot of technical knowledge – they just bank on me having less, because I’m a pensioner. They wouldn’t be capable of organised crime – they don’t even keep logs of their calls, or they wouldn’t keep repeating the same (unsuccessful) ploys. And automated telephone systems can never understand what I’m saying anyway, even when I speak to them nicely, so I’d never, ever use voice I.D.
Never say yes. Say Nothing!
The drone on the phone may be dumb but……
https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/synthetic-voice-phone-fraud/18034/
Say Nothing!
“Canada-based start-up called Lyrebird announced its technology for speech generation in April 2017.
A 1-minute speech recording is sufficient for training the system to say random phrases with the voice of a person who has been recorded …. Even the developers have admitted that the capability to synthesize speech is potentially dangerous…”
https://www.cso.com.au/article/625168/latest-scam-your-voice-can-used-against/
“How fraudsters took voice recognition one step further
Hold on, the nightmare is far from over. Fraudsters have devised a plan to get past black-listed catalogue by calling random individuals, enticing them to speak and then recording their voices. For example, an unknown caller might ask close ended questions such as “can you hear me” prompting the receiver to answer, “yes” or “no”. These voice recordings are then used to dial into a call centre to either defraud a company or another person’s account. Imagine that — fraudsters are creating databases of “innocent” voices. It’s chilling.”
….the others behind him may be more clever.
3 users thanked author for this post.
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Yeah, I know, breathing’s dangerous these days. But I’m not going to live in fear. It stops you having fun.
3 users thanked author for this post.
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Here’s a really interesting read – “Interview with a Craigslist scammer”
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server -
I have several friends and family who have used Microsoft for decades. I know that they all have W7 at work and home. Only one has W10. All have smart phones. They are mostly acquainted with the applications they use rather than Windows itself. On having read this thread I got curious. Do THEY know when W7 is scheduled to expire?
I sent each of them an email or a text and asked them not to Google the answer. Every one of them admitted that they did not know the actual date. They guessed dates well beyond 2020. Only one said it was 2020 and was certain it meant Dec 31, 2020.
I am a techie and my techie friends know it is 2020. Not one could give me the actual date, January 14, 2020 off the top of their head. In fact, when I pressed them to be more specific, not one said it was in January. Most said April 1 – a leg pull maybe?
I know my post has nothing to do with the scam itself, but …
The Information Age began around the 1970s and is apparently still going. It is also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age. This era brought about a time period in which people could access information and knowledge more easily. What went wrong?
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The concept of Microsoft’s planned end of support being a date after which Windows is “expired” seems awfully arbitrary.
Thing is, Windows 7 isn’t actually “scheduled to expire” at all. Nothing will cause it to stop working on January 14, 2020, the planned date for the end of extended support. There was a planned date for end of mainstream support that passed already (almost 4 years ago). What stopped working then? Do you remember anything important (i.e., not Marketing-related) actually happening?
Microsoft, of course, wants everyone to think Windows 7 is “expiring”. It’s one way to entice people to upgrade (i.e., pay more money to Microsoft). I KNOW I didn’t have to say that out loud.
After 10 years of patching to fix bugs and cover up vulnerabilities, Windows 7 has actually become a stable, fairly secure operating system. Is it PERFECTLY secure? No – but NOTHING is that. Note some time which OSs have vulnerabilities discovered each month per official lists like CERT.
What we have to consider – carefully – is just what Microsoft is providing with their “support”, or “extended support”. When you think critically about this you start to realize that it may not be all good – nor quite what it used to be…
Microsoft mainstream support already ended, quite a while ago. But that’s okay, how many basic bugs are Windows 7 users running into that Microsoft isn’t going to fix? One of the reasons it’s sticking around so long in so many places is that it’s fully functional – not waiting on Microsoft support to fix things.
Microsoft extended support – presumably the time in which they continue to patch the operating system to cover up the security vulnerabilities they built into the OS to begin with – is coming to an end. Is this really a bad thing? Think about all the stress involved with patching each month.
I’m reminded of a line from the film “The Devil’s Advocate” in which Al Pacino’s character is describing “guilt”. I’m imagining it applied to Windows Update…
“…is like a bag of bricks. All you have to do is set them down. Who are you carrying all those bricks for anyway?”
-Noel
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” Windows 7 isn’t actually “scheduled to expire” at all”. Yes, and you know very well that Microsoft marketing will drill every licensee to see it as dead and done on January 14, 2020. FUD campaigns will begin a good six months before eol. You can count on it. Enterprise techies know that the date is arbitrary. I fully expect a good number of them to negotiate extended support well beyond 2020. Consumers are the most likely to be brow beaten into submission.
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And there are always those who post “Windows 7 will be out of support in just over a year! You need to upgrade to Windows 10 now, before it’s too late!”
A year ago they were saying a similar thing.
A year is a long time, plenty of time before you actually have to make a move.
The one thing you need to do now rather than later is buy a retail copy or two of Windows 8.1, if you are planning on moving to Windows 8.1 in a year. You might not be able to get any retail licenses for Windows 8.1 a year from now.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server -
The killing nail is the new hardware. The ushering out or Windows 7 started in October 2016. The ACTUAL end of life for W7 is when your hardware goes casters up – consumer and enterprise. If the hardware is sound, W7 will hum along just fine well past 2020. End of Life means no Windows updates past January 14, 2020. After a while support for browsers and useful programs will drop off and this is the real eol of an OS for many users. The enterprise is a totally different story. Their apps and OS get the support they need (at a price).
4 users thanked author for this post.
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Actually, you can run Windows 7 probably forever on any future machine, if you run it in a virtual machine.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server3 users thanked author for this post.
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Yes, it will slowly become obsolete. Just as today you’d be hard-pressed to want to run XP without very specific needs. That’s the real reason we should want to upgrade and it should be expected to be something that happens naturally over a period of years – not given a “drop dead” date.
-Noel
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You might have a piece of “must-have” software that is very old, and that won’t run in a modern version of Windows. This would be a reason to keep an old version of Windows around in a vm.
A former pastor of mine had a very old Greek and Hebrew word study program that simply would not install in Windows 8.1, not even in Compatibility mode. And he didn’t want to pay for the software again, since the version he had was perfectly good for his needs. I installed Windows 2000 in a VM, and then installed the Greek and Hebrew program in the VM. Ran like a champ in the VM.
This is one of those rare, “very specific needs” that Noel spoke about above.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server1 user thanked author for this post.
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