Tech support scams

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It’s great to see that Google have finally acknowledged their part in dodgy tech support ad scams – on The Register today (by John Leyden): Google cra
[See the full post at: Tech support scams]

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Just today I got a spam/scam message on my answering machine from someone claiming that I needed to call their toll-free number (866) in order to “renew” my Windows license.

This is the first time I ever remember getting a tech-related scam call. But sadly, there will be folks out there who fall for this stuff.

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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Elly, HiFlyer, BobbyB

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There are some phone call scams that involve having to call back to “premium rate” numbers, i.e. ‘One Ring’ Wireless Phone Scam
FTC Info: Phone Scams

Yes, there are far too many victims of these scams, sadly.

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Elly, CyGuy, HiFlyer

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Someone I know fell for one of these scams and let a sleaze operator into his computer. It took me a couple of hours to clean up the mess. Malwarebytes removed something like 796 PUPs.

Now I’m wondering about the “Confidential Mode” feature in the new Gmail. On the surface, it seems like a security feature. But what happens with the hidden email? It’s still on Google’s server. And now it’s flagged as private. Might as well put up a Please Hack sign.

Not that I’m paranoid or anything.

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SueW, Elly, jburk07, CyGuy, HiFlyer

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I think the most common ones affecting the UK these days are the standard “We noted a problem with your computer, can you just let us access it and we’ll fix it for you” type scams resulting in malware downloads. That, and the scam calls claiming to be from your bank or the Police and alerting you to an imminent fraud on your account to prevent which you must immediately transfer the funds to the security account they give you the details of. There have been some prosecutions but these people are pure scum.

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Elly, HiFlyer

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TPS in the UK is just to report companies who do not have permission to call you. The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) is where complaints and callers details should be reported.

https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

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Elly, HiFlyer, Kirsty

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Thanks for the link – it ends up at this page, to report scams received by calls, email, phishing or online:
https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud

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Elly, Morty, HiFlyer

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I live in Brisbane Australia, and we get about two of these scam calls / week. We have a “Do not call register” here where one can stop unwanted calls from advertising and promotional people from calling you. It works well enough, but these scammers call from overseas, usually S.E. Asia and are beyond the reach of the Australian authorities.

They usually represent themselves as “your Microsoft (or Telstra ) technician and we have detected a problem with your Computer ……..” I even had one call the other day that was a synthetically generated voice message. We had a call on a Fax line as well. I usually hang up on them. It is impossible to trace them. They want to access your computer either to plant a piece of control software on it or to get your bank account details.

I have made it a rule that I do not do any online banking and I do not even keep my bank account details on my computer. I know that it is convenient to do online banking etc but the risk is too great in my opinion.

How you stop them — I do not know — I just hang up on them and get on with life. I do feel for the older folk who are often taken in by these people and loose their savings as a result.

mbhelwig

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Great Lake Bunyip, Karlston, HiFlyer

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mbhelwig wrote:

They usually represent themselves as “your Microsoft (or Telstra ) technician and we have detected a problem with your Computer ……”

I always ask them, “What are you doing hacking into my computer?”

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Kirsty

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If I feel like wasting time answering, I like saying, “Oh really. What’s the hostname of my computer?” That always gets an instant hang up. If anyone ever got it right the router would be unplugged in a second or two.

A funny guy I used to work with would intentionally waste their time pretending to follow their instructions (never actually doing anything) and pretending to flub it up after a couple of steps like he was having trouble getting anything to work until they gave up. I’ve seen him string them along for 15 minutes easy.

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MrJimPhelps, BobbyB

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Should be noted that so called official support (vastly outsourced to India etc. these days) amounts to scam normally. Avast, Symantec, Microsoft… mostly useless waste of money.

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HiFlyer

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Would not be surprised if it was revealed one day that consumer information was leaked to scammers from the call centers.

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I’ve not had one of these scam calls for a long while but the last one a few months back was a little different, so worth a note.

I was called by someone who said “I’m calling from your ISP”. When I asked which one he promptly hung up. A different approach but one that could easily catch out the unwary.

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SueW, Elly, jburk07, HiFlyer

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anonymous wrote:

Should be noted that so called official support (vastly outsourced to India etc. these days) amounts to scam normally. Avast, Symantec, Microsoft… mostly useless waste of money.

Dell’s extended hardware and software support on a new computer is not a waste of money.  Especially if you buy from Dell Small Business rather than Home, you get Pro Support which is access to Enterprise support techs in the USA.  However, I actually prefer XPS Premium dedicated support as, even though the techs are in India, they are involved ONLY with XPS systems and thus are actually better than the Enterprise techs that I deal with now.  But if you are buying a system other than XPS or Alienware from Small Business, Pro Support is fine and not a waste of money.

Plus, if your primary use for the computer is business then Pro Support with Enterprise techs is great, but if your use is more for enjoyment then better to buy via Small Business Member Purchase Program and get Premium support (especially if buying an XPS).  Of course, always best to buy over the phone through a Dell Small Business sales person (or your MPP representative) as you will get more savings that way as they have access to various savings you cannot get if you buy online.

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Elly, jburk07

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Here is a general rule I use.  If I don t call you and I don t know you when you call me I don t talk to you and I just hang up.

I will never do any banking or investment work on line.  I go into the bank or the investment companies office or branch.

I will generally use an ATM card  to get cash only not for deposits. I never will use and do not have a debit card.  I have a credit card and use that instead.  That way if there is a problem the credit card issuer has to fight with me to get their money and I don t have to fight with them to get my money if I use a debit card.

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Elly

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And as an added measure I only use ATMs located inside a bank branch office.  IMHO, that virtually eliminates the risk associated with skimmers.

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As an added measure I replace my cards every three months. Once I receive the replacement cards, I go to the bank and have them manually kill the older cards. I also save the old “killed” cards so that I have a physical record of the card numbers and the CCV codes.

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I recommend setting up a ‘Hello, this is Lenny’ on a FreePBX system.

Telemarketers just love talking to him!

https://crosstalksolutions.com/howto-pwn-telemarketers-with-lenny/

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The Nigerian Prince thing was a very successful email scam but the phone campaigns that get people to hand over control of their computer to have it ‘fixed’ have been way more lucrative. The courts are in a quandary as to how to handle these crimes because the victim freely hands over access to their asset. Fundamentally it is fraud but the penalty for the crime is minimal. Small fines are about as much as the operation will ever have to endure (plus court costs) and their equipment is not seized. In fact, they are usually up and running again within a week in a new location. You would think that law enforcement would throw the book at them – tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering, grand theft, misuse and abuse of a public utility, etc etc etc, but they do not. It is because the operation originates and operates overseas where the law recognizes the scammer as a legitimate business. If you agree to let them access your asset and then pay for their services, you are a customer regardless of whether the product is helping or hurting you.

It appears that pretending to be a Microsoft or ISP representative gets people hooked more easily. The scammers do not do well with Linux and Chromebook users – no event log to refer to and many of these pathetic drones can not navigate the OS.

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Great Lake Bunyip, BobbyB, jburk07

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Someone called a friend of mine once and told her that her computer had Windows issues. I happened to be there, so she handed me the phone. I asked the guy, “How can we be having Windows issues? This is a Mac!”

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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SueW

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Just today I got a spam/scam message on my answering machine from someone claiming that I needed to call their toll-free number (866) in order to “renew” my Windows license

My clients get those for over 4 years now every couple times a month. Reported it to MS site and police, and nothing has been done to this date. No one care about this stuff any more.

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You would think, in a world today that is obsessed with security, that someone would care. I have to admit you’re right. It’s alright as long as it’s not me, seems to be the implied reaction I see to the problem.

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If you get a call claiming to be from Microsoft support, you should instantly realize it is a scam. We all know that you could not pay good money to ever get Microsoft to call you, more or less unsolicited by you. Just hang up and never let them engage you in any form of conversation.

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I would be nervous if I got a call from Microsoft – I would fear that they wanted to take me to court over some sort of licensing violation.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Some days I get 8 to 10 calls a day from various bottom feeders. I purchased a call blocker capable of blocking 2500 calls and I have, with the exception of my own, every area code I get one of those calls on blocked. Calls in my area code get blocked on a per call basis as needed. This cut down drastically on my problem with these scamming crooks. The most common I received are from phony Microsoft, Dell and Medicare with an occasional IRS thrown in. I have a Dell and wonder sometimes how they get that info unless of coarse they’re just phishing, hoping to get lucky.

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I don’t get too many through a browser, except with Safari sometimes. I definitely get almost weekly phone calls for fake support.

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I don’t answer calls from numbers I do not know or recognize. If it is important they will leave a voicemail. It has worked well for me.

Group A | Windows 7 Pro 64-bit | Windows 10 Pro 1809 64-bit

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JSTechGeek wrote:

I don’t answer calls from numbers I do not know or recognize. If it is important they will leave a voicemail. It has worked well for me.

Same here.  I get many from my ISP/Telekom but they never leave a msg.   So….

fuhgeddaboudit.

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JSTechGeek

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It may not be so simple, and some of these scams can be very costly for the unwary:

Spoofing! What is it?
https://www.idcare.org/latest-news/spoofing-what-is-it

Have you ever missed a call, returned it and found yourself speaking with someone who’s telling you that you called them first? You might have been the victim of Caller ID Spoofing. Or, on the receiving end, wondered why a scammer’s phone number showed up as a local number on your phone? This type of technology allows a caller to masquerade as someone else by falsifying the number that appears on the recipients caller ID display.

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jburk07

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Hm, isn’t the standard support of Microsoft also not some form of scam? I stopped asking anything to them years ago after some time consuming useless conversation with someone who obviously didn’t know at all what she was talking about. Extremely heavy accents also there always, often difficult to follow. :-/

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First and foremost, screen incoming calls. Let them all go to voicemail and answer only those from people you know.
Fact is, everytime one of these calls gets answered by a human, the scammers log the number as “good” and no matter whether they succeed at conning you, they still sell your number on their network and make money off you anyway.
The result is you get more of these calls and they sell you number and the cycle continues until you break it. Ever get any of these with no one on the other end? Those are simply searching for “good” phone numbers with a human answering. More numbers for them to sell.

For my Android, I use Calls Blacklist. It sends all calls to voicemail until the number is whitelisted by me.

For my home phone, I use MagicJack. they have a screening function. It challenges the caller to press a random button on the phones dialer to be connected. Since enabling that feature, we have had one call from a political survey. It was not a robodialer. This feature even blocks political calls. But we need to be sure doctors and such have more than one way to contact us and/or realize they will need to be ready to answer this challenge.

Bottom line, do not answer those calls. This is just another way they can make money off you.

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SueW

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Here in Australia I’ve been using the Telstra Call Guardian 301 cordless phone/answering machine since late May and the number of scammer/telemarketer calls I’ve had has dropped to almost zero. It is a copy of a similar call screening BT phone sold in the UK (the BT8600).

After you’ve entered all of your contacts (friends, work, etc.) into the phone (they get straight through or they go to the answering machine if I’m not home) any other callers get a recorded ‘challenge’ where they have to say their name then press the # key.

If they don’t do that (i.e. robodiallers) the ‘challenge’ repeats itself 2 more times then the call disconnects.

If they do say their name and press # the phone then rings and plays back the caller’s recorded ‘announcement’ then you can choose to accept or ignore/block the call. Like anonymous #215268 the only caller who has passed the ‘challenge’ so far was a survey done by a ‘live’ person about a month ago.

I wasn’t there at the time so they left a message on the answering machine saying they will call again later then when I got home I manually blocked the number. They tried to call again about 25 times in the following week and a half before finally giving up. With the same number all the time surprisingly enough.  I only found that out by checking the missed calls log on the phone. I gave them points for persistence if nothing else.

I am on the Australian Do Not Call Register but it only stops legitimate telemarketers. Politicians, charities, surveys and religious groups are exempt and scammers don’t care and just ignore the DNC and try to call anyway.

If it gets to the point where the scammers, etc. find a way to get past the recorded ‘challenge’ by “pressing” # with their robodiallers I can always choose the Custom call blocking setting which allows me to block all numbers not on the phone’s contact list – they will get a “your call is not being accepted, please hang up” message and the call disconnects.

Don’t want to go to that extreme at this stage because I might get an important call from someone (doctors, government department, etc.) who’s number isn’t on the phone’s contact list and they won’t be able to get through.

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Hello everyone,

I am quite surprised about so many comments which mention frequently receiving these tech support scam phone calls. I have never had one such phone call incident. This is perhaps, with regards to an online stalking incident, which occurred 10 years ago, and of which I was a victim. The FBI agent I worked with told me to never ever, and wherever and whenever possible, use my real name online, and to be very careful about whatever other additional information I post about myself online. I have heeded his advice ever since.

I NEVER use the same password for any web site which I sign up for. I also NEVER use any online password generators. You have to be really stupid to do so. I also have never downloaded any password generator programs. Really? Do I really need to tell you that this is a potential risk?

I also temporarily enabled the Administrator Account on all of my Windows 7 computers, then created a password with enough characters which include special characters, and then disabled the Administrator Account on all of my Windows 7 computers. Too few characters for the password, or no password at all, and your Admin account can readily be hacked. I won’t explain the details (should be a separate post). This is just a warning about what you can do to prevent a lot of malware from gaining Admin rights.

I regularly check the Have I Been Pwned web site to see if any of my email accounts have been Pwned.

I don’t use any third party email providers such as Yahoo or Gmail on a regular basis. Such third party email accounts are merely backup email accounts. While I do have a Gmail account, it isn’t under my actual name, and I never use this Gmail account when signing up on any web site .

I don’t even use my ISP’s free email account. In fact, I never enabled it.

Instead and for around 25 years, I have used email accounts which I directly control since they were created by me via a web site which I created and which is hosted by my preferred web hosting provider. The info about my web site is locked down six ways from Sunday, and my web hosting provider is super good about installing security updates as soon as they become available for deployment. My web hosting provider is a fairly small company, yet they are really, really good at what they do.

I do have a Facebook account, yet it too is not under my real name. I provided the minimum information which Facebook requires for an account signup, and then I enabled every single privacy setting which Facebook offers. Likewise, I did similar for my Google, YouTube and LinkedIn accounts (and other accounts), all of which are not under my real name.

I am Group B on Windows 7. I will never install Windows 10 — not because I give a d*mn about what our government’s security agencies might want to collect about me and since I do nothing illegal, but because of the undocumented chain of what telemetry Microsoft gathers and to whom Microsoft sells such telemetry. Note that Facebook is (was?) one of the third parties which Microsoft freely shared Windows 10 telemetry with. I have no idea if this has changed.

I am also quite particular about the AV software which I have used, since 2009. All support personnel for the AV company are “in house” instead of being outsourced.

Well, this is pretty much all that I have to say at the moment. Again, I am remarkably surprised, with regards to the various posts, about how often the posters mention that they receive these “tech support” phone calls. The only thing which I can surmise is that everyone who has posted along these lines should really do some serious online digging, starting with the Have I Been Pwned web site, and go from there, and then think about every online password which you have used — no matter how long ago — which perhaps you subsequently reused.

Best regards,

–GTP

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SueW, jburk07

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How I drove phone scammers nuts
By Aurel Stevens | July 25, 2018

 
Your phone rings and there’s a Microsoft employee with an Indian accent at the other end. Sound familiar? I was recently pestered by scammers myself, so I decided to try out different strategies to deter them. Although the last attempt led to an insult, it also put an end to the calls – at least for now.

I think it goes without saying that these calls are not made by genuine Microsoft employees. These callers are criminals. Criminals who are trying to make people install software that allows them to install Trojans and control computers by remote.
…
To mark the occasion – we’re talking five calls in a single day! – I would like to present my strategy for dealing with unsolicited calls.

…Should my phone ring again, my workmate Dominik Bärlocher is prepared and has come up with the following idea: A virtual machine that makes these scammers waste even more precious time.

 
Read the full article here – it’s well worth the few minutes it takes!

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SueW, MrJimPhelps, jburk07

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@Kirsty,

one of the funniest ways I have seen for dealing with scammers and telemarketers is “Lenny”.

He sounds like a confused and gullible elderly gentleman (a perfect ‘target’ for scammers) but he is actually a series of recordings which make callers believe they are talking to a real person. “Lenny” even waits for the caller to stop talking (using silence detection) before playing the next section of the recordings. I’ve read somewhere that it is an Australian voice actor who is behind the voice of Lenny.

If you do a Google search for, say, “Lenny and telemarketers” you’ll find lots of Lenny calls that have been recorded and put on YouTube for our listening enjoyment.

Oh, the ducks are hilarious – you’ll hear them about 5 minutes into the calls (if the callers manage to stay on the line long enough).

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Carl D wrote:

one of the funniest ways I have seen for dealing with scammers and telemarketers is “Lenny”

You mean this guy?

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Carl D

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Oops, yep – that’s the guy.

Sorry, I missed that post by ‘anonymous’.

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“Tooot Tooot!”

Too bad the comments aren’t in English; I’ll bet there are some funny stories there!

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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I have a Dell and wonder sometimes how they get that info unless of coarse they’re just phishing, hoping to get lucky.

Dell was hacked a few years back. I got contact by Dell telling that my data was stole but it was only my address and Dell model number and nothing else. Since my phone number is in the phone book, the hackers found my phone number and been calling every few months saying that they are from Dell. This is how most likely they know you have a Dell.

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Since everything is hackable now, I do not use my real name or address or email address or phone number or anything. This is why I post anonymous here just in case. Many more people need to start doing that if they care about their privacy.

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Every IT Support person knows that there is nothing more frustrating than a user who simply will not follow your directions, but rather insists on plowing ahead with his own ideas about how to fix the issue that he called about. This would be a fun way of handling one of these calls – the scammer tells you do to ‘x’, but instead you do ‘y’, and then tell them “I’m trying ‘y'” as soon as they begin to tell you to do ‘x’. This would waste a huge amount of the scammer’s time, and would likely frustrate him to no end.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Kirsty

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I had these scam phone calls.
When they started to be everyday, every hour,  from morning until night.
I thought I was going to lose it.
No matter what I tried nothing stopped them.
Well, not quite true.
I carry a Lorex personal body alarm on my daily walks.
I describe it like a grenade.  You pull the pin and the high pitched sound is deafening.
Seriously, it’s really, really bad.
Hmmmm,
One day I thought why not give this a try with my repeated callers.
The calls started in early am.  I did the hang up a few times because I needed to “pull the grenade” outside and didn’t want to wake the neighbors.
Finally the opportunity presented itself.
I answered the phone and engaged in a brief conversation while I went outside.
I have a cordless phone.
I then told the person I was at my computer and to tell me exactly what I need to do.
He started talking and…………..
I put the phone on the ground, put the alarm near the part that you speak in and let it rip.
Seriously, I am sure it may have done some hearing damage to whomever.

Do I still get these phone calls?
Maybe a couple since I did this a couple years ago.

Here’s the alarm I use.

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I love http://www.nomorobo.com for getting rid of most of these calls.  I gotta look into Lenny though.

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Nomorobo is very good but we found the CPR Call Blocker even better.  It comes pre-loaded with 5,000 robo call numbers already blocked and has room for adding 1,500 more.  It has a big red button that you push when you get a robo call and it is immediately blocked and the phone will not ring.  Pushing the red button is loads of fun!

Nomorobo is free but the CPR Call Blocker is $55 from QVC.  For us it was the best investment for our peace of mind since we are retired and home a lot to be able to be bothered by the robo calls we got daily.  Weeks now go by without any nuisance calls.

Actually, one of the only nuisance calls that gets through is the same computer guy repeatedly calling from different numbers and wanting to help us to fix our Microsoft windows computer (which we now have an IMac).  Hubby enjoys keeping him on the phone while he pretends he is following instructions.  When the man asks what do you see on the computer — Hubby says the screen is blue and you ruined my computer!  When the guy hears that he remembers that it is Hubby and he swears at us and hangs up.

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‘Lenny’ YouTube led me to these about replying to spam emails…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QdPW8JrYzQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Uc-cztsJo

greynad

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A recently updated resource on tech scams to watch out for:

 
70+ common online scams used by cyber criminals and fraudsters
By Jon Watson | UPDATED: January 29, 2020

 
Contents:

1 Email-based scams
  1.1 Advanced-fee fraud
  1.2 Nigerian scam (Nigerian 419 scam)
  1.3 Charity fraud
  1.4 Work-at-home job scams
  1.5 Cancelled account
  1.6 CEO fraud
  1.7 Greeting cards
  1.8 Affinity fraud
  1.9 Guaranteed bank loan or credit card
  1.10 Service provider
  1.11 Scam compensation scam
2 Elder fraud
  2.1 Investment scams
  2.2 Insurance schemes
  2.3 Health scams
  2.4 Grandparent scam
3 Extortion
  3.1 Ransomware
  3.2 Sextortion
  3.3 Hitman
  3.4 Terrorist threat
  3.5 Bomb threat
  3.6 DDoS attack
4 Phishing
  4.1 Spear phishing
  4.2 Whaling
  4.3 W-2 phishing
  4.4 Phishing to deliver ransomware
5 Vishing
  5.1 Bank
  5.2 Tax
  5.3 Prize
  5.4 Tech support
  5.5 Government agency
6 Social media scams
  6.1 “See who’s viewed your profile”
  6.2 Facebook “dislike” button
  6.3 Fake celebrity news
  6.4 Impersonation scam
  6.5 Instagram Likes scam
  6.6 Job offer scam
7 Travel scams
  7.1 Free or discounted vacation
  7.2 Vacation ticket re-sell scam
  7.3 Points scheme
  7.4 Vacation rental
8 Tax scams
  8.1 Fake audit
  8.2 Fake refund
  8.3 Erroneous refund
  8.4 Tax protester scheme
9 Bitcoin and cryptocurrency scams
  9.1 Fake coin exchanges
  9.2 Hacked coin exchanges
  9.3 Pump and dump scheme
  9.4 Fraudulent cloud mining companies
  9.5 Mining malware
  9.6 ICO exit scam
  9.7 ICO impersonators
  9.8 Cryptocurrency investment schemes
  9.9 Wallet fork scams
  9.10 Wallet impersonators
  9.11 Coin mixing service phishing scam
  9.12 Coin mixing service Ponzi schemes
10 Other online scams
  10.1 Fake anti-virus software popup windows
  10.2 Fake websites
  10.3 Counterfeit goods sites
  10.4 Online dating and romance scams
  10.5 Ticket scams
  10.6 Rental scam
  10.7 SMS scams
  10.8 Amazon phishing scam
  10.9 Amazon delivery scam
  10.10 Astroturfing (advertising scam)
  10.11 Continuity scams
  10.12 Stock market scam
  10.13 Buyer scams
  10.14 Overpayment
11 How to recognize scams
  11.1 Recognizing secure sites
  11.2 Spotting a fake or spoof phishing email
12 How to report a scam

 
Read the full article here

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I’ve had only two of these calls – I consider myself fortunate.

Actually, I didn’t get the two calls; rather, I was helping those who had gotten the calls.

1. I was visiting a friend of mine, when she got one of these calls. She handed me the phone, and I asked the caller how he knew that her computer had viruses, and why was he spying on her computer. He hung up after I chewed him out for a few minutes.

2. One of my customers was an elderly professor at a school where I worked. I would often fix issues with his computer, help him purchase something, etc. One day he fell for one of these scams, to the point of giving them his credit card number. I asked him why he didn’t simply hang up and ask me if there was a problem with his computer, since I was his computer tech. (I will never understand how he could fall for that scam, when I had been making sure his computer was safe and protected, and he could call me at any time for assistance.)

There are a few guys on Youtube who get the phone numbers of the scammer organizations, and they call the scammers and proceed to take control of the scammer’s computer and delete most of their files. These videos are very entertaining to watch, because finally someone is dealing with the scammers.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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wavy

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