Microsoft Dumps Partner For Fake Support Call Scam

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has broken its relationship with one of its Gold Partners, after it discovered that the partner was involved in a scam involving bogus tech support calls. India-based Comantra is said to have cold-called computer users in the UK, Australia, Canada and elsewhere, claiming to offer assistance in cleaning up virus infections. The calls used scare tactics to talk users into opening the Event Viewer on Windows, where a seemingly dangerous list of errors would be seen. This 'evidence' was used to trick innocent users into believing they had a malware infection, and for Comantra to gain the users' confidence. Duped users would then give permission for the support company to have remote access to their PC, and hand over their credit card details for a 'fix.' Security firm Sophos says that internet users have been complaining about Comantra's activities for over 18 months, and it has taken a long time for Microsoft to take action. Comantra's website still retains the Gold Certified Partner logo, although their details have been removed from Microsoft's database of approved partners."

Comments

Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[pro151]

90% of all users are idiots.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[Hitokiri Battousai]

90% of all people are idiots.

FTFY

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[pro151]

Well OK. People, users. One in the same.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[JRowe47]

99.999999% of all people are idiots.

FTFY

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[bratwiz]

90% of all users are idiots.

And the other half are no brainiacs either!

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[PerformanceDude]

Actually, you need to take your corporate IT hat off for a second. The people who fall for this scam are typically people who didn't grow up with computers. Your mum and dad (now maybe in their sixties), who only use a computer to type the odd letter, Skype the grandkids and maybe look for old friends on Facebook. They do not have access to tech support and mostly their computers have been bought in a standard configuration with just the few things they need installed.

Those people (I can't get myself to call them users) have been told by their kids, the banks and everyone else they trust to understand computers, that viruses are a real threat and that if you get a computer virus it is really bad and awful things can happen to you (identity theft, damaged computer, having your broadbad costs skyrocket from a spam-virus using up your allowance etc.).

I know some of these people are scared to even start a web browser for any site that they have not specifically been told they can trust.

So, when one of these scam (scum) artists calls up and tells them that they have a bad virus - their immediate reaction is fear and confusion. When the scammer then offers to "fix" the problem, they gladly agree to hand over a relatively modest amount (around $150 usually) and let the scammer go ahead. Sadly, once their credit card details have been handed over, it is normally not the end of it.

How do I know all this? Because it happened to the nice old man down the street. He was almost in tears when he told me how he'd gone ahead and let the scammer take almost half his weekly pension money. It also happened to a nice elderly couple that are friends of my parents and to the man who mowes my lawn to supplement his pension. Nice, normal and not even that gullible people - just people who are not geeks.

We (the geeks) actually have a responsibility to educate those poor people rather than calling them idiots. Nothing beats a scammer better than being forewarned.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[Isaac Remuant]

100 % of users are people. (?)

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[Billlagr]

+1 if I had mod points. I had these a'holes contact friends, relatives (not necessarily overlapping groups there), I heard 3rd hand about these calls, they were absolutely rampant for a period of time. It is the parent, grandparents, the casual users that get stung, and often can't afford it.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[black3d]

That's a bit harsh. They don't have our degree of expertise, but everyones knowledge is generally specialised. "The IT Guys" are just jaded, because they've chosen a profession where they have to deal with that lack of knowledge in their specific area, on a daily basis. It's why I got out of tech support after a couple of years - I didn't like dealing with that. Meanwhile, those "IT guys" have a very limited field of expertise, and are usually unskilled at just about everything NOT computer-related. This doesn't make everybody idiots, it just states the obvious fact that everyone's knowledge is specialised. Ignore the jaded jerks. If their joy comes from irrationally insulting strangers, they're twats.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[PopeRatzo]

Well OK. People, users. One in the same.

But only 84% of users are people.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[abednegoyulo]

I'd mod you up if I had some points!

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[davester666]

Sorry, cats sleeping on laptops or keyboards don't count as 'users'...

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[bemymonkey]

All the more reason to move people like this to walled gardens. Let them roam free in the relative safety of iOS or (maybe, if they stick to the Market only) even Android...

Although some people are too stubborn. Just last month my girlfriend's dad asked me for help picking out a new PC... why not just an iPad? Because he does photo editing - as in rotating, resizing, and captions that look like they were done with the "WordArt" feature from Office 97. And since that's only possible on a high-horsepower, dual core PC, well... he wanted one. Unfortunately, I didn't find this out until after the purchase *facepalm*...

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[slackbheep]

Sorry but in my experience this simply is not the case. The same family members and friends who can't take the time to learn to protect themselves when online are also too bloody unhandy to level a picture frame, or screw in a curtain rack. Meanwhile my father who is a carpenter by trade and if anything was a bit of a luddite has a pretty good general idea of what sorts of things to look for these days and now educates our family members as best he can. He taught me that there is no such thing as a free lunch and I returned the favor, but that was only possible because he cared to learn.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[black3d]

Maybe their skills are better suited.. to a more intimate environment? ;)

J/K. :) Don't get me wrong - I understand there are many.. many idiots around. I just don't find that everyone bamboozled by computers is necessarily an idiot, some being brilliant in their own fields, but still, after all these years, unable to format text.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[kmoser]

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[mwvdlee]

Indeed.
As previously stated, 90% of users are idiots and 84% of users are people.
Therefore atleast 6% of users would be idiots but not people.
And cats aren't idiots.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[Eraesr]

But the problem here isn't computer savvyness. The problem here is people trusting a stranger on the phone coming up with some vague story about their computer. Anyone with half a brain would (should at least) be suspicious of that, computer knowledge or not.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[drinkypoo]

We (the geeks) actually have a responsibility to educate those poor people rather than calling them idiots.

I choose to educate these people by calling them idiots.

The basic principles behind computing, or your car, or basically anything else in your life are not that complicated, and understanding them bears immediate dividends. Most people, however, willfully avoid learning anything about any of these things, to their detriment. However, what I find more ridiculous is that people are accepting calls out of the blue from J.Random Idiot and believing everything they're saying. It's almost like their parents failed to raise them to make critical decisions or something.

The meek shall inherit the earth, but they shall have to ask the geek to run it for them. And the cycle begins anew...

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[WrongSizeGlass]

That's actually a reference to a popular Yogi Berra quote: Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[flappinbooger]

We (the geeks) actually have a responsibility to educate those poor people rather than calling them idiots. Nothing beats a scammer better than being forewarned.

I would totally agree with your post, but your last sentence there gave me pause. Who says "We the geeks" have that responsibility? Do homeowners, landlords and hotel chain managers have the responsibility to house all the homeless? Does McDonalds have the responsibility to feed the starving kids in [country]? No? Then why do geeks HAVE TO educate the literally millions of clueless computer users who bought their interwebs machine from WalMart along with their milk, bread, sweat shop jeans and cheap 20 piece screwdriver set?

The tech divide is getting wider, not narrower, and after dealing with this VERY SAME philosophical dilemma myself, I am not so sure it is "our" responsibility to do it from an altruistic, moral agenda, tech hero standpoint.

No, if the millions of clueless users want our help, they can hire us to teach them or barter some other goods or services.

Helping family and friends, sure. There IS a certain obligation to do that to a certain extent, but even there we've all experienced and read about the nightmare of doing tech support for relatives.

A wise person once told me that a brilliant consultant's advice, no matter how good, will be ignored if he gives it away for free. Advice paid for dearly is followed to the letter.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[drinkypoo]

Someone calls you up and says "your car was spotted on the highway driving in a certain fashion and we can tell that you need an alignment job, so report to 1234 your mom's street for service which will cost you a hundred dollars" what do you do? You assume they're a scammer and you hang up the phone. Someone calls you up and says "your computer was spotted on the internet leaking packets in a certain fashion so we can tell you're infected with a virus so give us twenty bucks and we'll give you this software you've never heard of before to fix it" and you give them the money? Seriously. It makes them idiots. Don't make excuses for them. This is the kind of decision anyone should be able to make about anything. If someone tells you something that sounds like bullshit, then you should go do some research and find out if it's bullshit. And if these spiels don't sound like bullshit, well then their bullshit detectors are broken. When people can't detect bullshit, we call them all kinds of names. Sometimes we call them idiots.

If someone doesn't know how to drive, we tell them to get off the road.

If someone can't handle the awesome responsibility of using a computer, perhaps they should be supplied with an abacus, a notebook, and a pencil.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[WrongSizeGlass]

Taking such actions would put you in direct competition with some rather prominent governments - none of whom like competition from "start-ups".

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[coolmadsi]

90% of all users are idiots.

The scammers making the calls aren't too bright either. I had one call once saying that they had logs saying I had a virus. I asked who they were. They said "This is Microsoft". They didn't answer my question of "Why does Microsoft have logs from my computer running Ubuntu?" and kept on trying to get me to open a web browser. I got bored after a while and hung up.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[black3d]

Bad analogy, as much as I like car analogies. :) First of all, if someone doesn't know how to drive, we tell them to get off the road because they pose a serious risk to the lives of others and themselves. If the same applied (in the same respect.. I'm sure someone can accidently strangle themselves with a mouse cable if they try really hard) to computers, we wouldn't let folks use those either, but there's no comparison.

For the first part of the analogy, the individual "spotting cars on the highway", while they may have specialist knowledge, they don't have inside knowledge. They haven't been poking around in your car and being able to gain insight that you can't verify. The computer equivalent to this would be "I saw your computer through your Window the other night and reckon you've got malware". Neither will happen. With the internet example, it's quite possible for someone else to view the packets you're sending, and quite often when someone actually is DDoSing through malware, their ISP will cut off their net connection and contact them to get it fixed.

A better equivalency would rather be that your car breaks down on the side of the road, and a few minutes later a breakdown/tow truck comes along and says he was just on the way back from a job and asks if you'd like any help. He looks inside your bonnet and says then mechanowhatsit is broken and it'll need to be towed as he can't do a road-side fix on it. He takes you back to the garage and lets you know the car will be ready for collection tomorrow, and you can just pay the bill for repairs then - he was already "on his way back" so the trip is free. Delighted with this helpful bloke with inside knowledge of the internals of your car, you catch a cab home. When you return in the morning, the truck's gone, your car's gone, and the attendant's never heard of him. Many folks have fallen for this, and it's not because they're "idiots".

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[drinkypoo]

if someone doesn't know how to drive, we tell them to get off the road because they pose a serious risk to the lives of others and themselves.

and if someone doesn't know how to compute, we tell them to get off the internet because they pose a serious risk to the data and "identity" of others and themselves.

For the first part of the analogy, the individual "spotting cars on the highway", while they may have specialist knowledge, they don't have inside knowledge. They haven't been poking around in your car and being able to gain insight that you can't verify. The computer equivalent to this would be "I saw your computer through your Window the other night and reckon you've got malware". Neither will happen.

Congratulations on knowing little about cars or computers. Advanced car scammers [mis]use semi-public records and contact you with some foreknowledge of what you drive. Advanced computer scammers use popups and tracking combined with the leakiness of your browser and contact you with some foreknowledge of who you are and what your computing environment is like. Taking this a bit further, car thieves who gain access to registration lists can target vehicles with known security vulnerabilities (such as replay attacks, for which you can purchase completed solutions from Chinese sites like DealExtreme) with knowledge of model and year (via VIN) and address. And "computer criminals" can attack your computer based on the same information that the scammers attempt to use to extract money from your wallet quasi-legally.

A better equivalency would rather be that your car breaks down on the side of the road, and a few minutes later a breakdown/tow truck comes along and says he was just on the way back from a job and asks if you'd like any help.

Only if there was actually something wrong with your car. Even from the summary the clear analogy would be if a mobile mechanic were to pull up next to your car in a parking lot and tell you that you had a problem, then proceed to (for example) put a drop of oil from your dipstick into a bogus oil analyzer (perhaps the diesel one when testing a gasser, and vice versa) and then proceed to sell you an oil change. Because the only thing that has been alleged here is that they're selling unneeded services to the sucker^Wcustomer, and it's possible that they actually are delivering a malware removal tool to the customer which may actually remove some malware in some circumstances, just like some of the people the unscrupulous mechanic in our automotive analogy scams into getting an oil change might actually need one.

Re:Maybe the I.T. guys are right after all.

[black3d]

Only if there was actually something wrong with your car.

I see you fail at reading comprehension and missed the first half of the sentence. I really don't know why I bother.

Congratulations on knowing little about cars or computers.

Incorrect, but nice try. What you quoted was about people, not either of those. Another reading comprehension fail, but that's okay. You're new at this.

Advanced computer scammers use popups and tracking combined with the leakiness of your browser

Except we're not talking about advanced computer scammers. We're talking about cold-calling Indians who ALSO use publically available information to garner phone numbers. And yes - I've had this company call a new phone number that even I didn't know.

Taking this a bit further, car thieves who gain access to registration lists can target vehicles with known security vulnerabilities

Right.. except this elaborate analogy you're concocting is getting further from any parallel to techniques used by the company in question, so doesn't serve as a rebuttal to my rebuttal.. *eye roll*

And etc more comments you make about specialised directed attacks. Except that's not what's going on here. So the rant sorely misses the point, which is simply that not everyone who falls victim to any scam is an idiot, nor deserves to be judged as much. But since you can't even maintain a coherent train of thought from the original post through to this point and instead keep trying to escalate and divert the debate to the point where you eventually have a scenario which actually does fit your billing, there's not much reason to continue. Your next post will be even further off track.

Sophos is a security firm?

[F-3582]

Seriously, they should start thinking about changing business after this.

Re:Sophos is a security firm?

[F-3582]

This paper is freakin hilarious. Wonder why it didn't make it to /., yet.

Re:Sophos is a security firm?

[Lisias]

Please mod parent as "Funny".

That was a joke!

Re:Sophos is a security firm?

[kermidge]

Interesting paper, worth reading. Thanks.

Re:Sophos is a security firm?

[Tolkien]

Question: How are we all the pathetic ones when you have to resort to creating zillions of accounts in order to get any visibility because your karma is always burned into oblivion?

Re:Sophos is a security firm?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a reference to famous bug called the 'f00f' bug, if you've ever looked in /proc/cpuinfo on an x86 Linux system, you might have noticed it mentioned. Intel published a number of workarounds that OS vendors can use to prevent it, so most operating systems check on boot whether the system is affected, and then implement Intel's suggestions as necessary (if it says "f00f_bug: no" that means Linux determined that you were not affected, and the workarounds were not necessary).

The f00f bug was a malformed encoding of the cmpxchg8b (compare and exchange 8byte) instruction with a nonsense four byte r32 operand, however, cmpxchg8b is well known to programmers who don't specialise in security as well, as it's important for use in low-level locking primitives.

As you probably execute thousands of cmpxchg8b instructions every second, I don't know why it would look shady. Perhaps you're not a programmer and thought it looked like a random combination of digits and letters, but that would be ironic from someone called L4t3r4lu5, no? :-)

Re:Sophos is a security firm?

[L4t3r4lu5]

I stand corrected!

I'm not sure if I should be dismayed or glad that there are people in the world far more nerdy than me :)

Re:Sophos is a security firm?

[sgt scrub]

http://anti-virus-rants.blogspot.com/2011/08/tavis-ormandys-sophail-presentation.html

Re:Sophos is a security firm?

[jahudabudy]

Be glad. You received a polite, informative, ANONYMOUS response concerning a somewhat obscure piece of Linux knowledge. On the Internet. I can only assume a unicorn is about to knock on your door and offer you a winning lottery ticket.

Re:Sophos is a security firm?

[Tolkien]

"We" are everyone you call a "feeb" and "completely pathetic". I see that I'm included in that now too.
*rolls eyes*.
You need serious psychiatric assistance.

Re:about freaking time!

[Anaerin]

Same here. They called me and my in-laws, claiming to be from "Microsoft Computer Support". I told them it was a federal offence to falsify caller ID information (The call came from "1-000-000-0000"). They hung up fairly quickly.

Windows Errors

[8ball629]

Maybe Windows shouldn't have so many errors (even after a clean install).

Re:Windows Errors

[LordLucless]

It's not windows' fault this time.

Check /var/log/syslog - you'll find a similar bunch of arcane "errors" that look disturbing to a typical clueless user.

Re:Windows Errors

[DarkOx]

Actually no its not, I am looking at a fresh install of Slackware 13.37 on VM right now. There is certainly some stuff there about my harddisk cache being assumed to be write through and the fact that my file systems were mounted; but nothing says "error", except

kernel: [51032.320044] usb 5-1: device not accepting address 9, error -71

Which I seems to have happened shortly after I tried to pass through a USB mouse to the VM, and given udev did not seem to do anything, I think that its probably um an actual error.

Windows on the other hand has tons events it logs as well, which I think good, its often very useful. Some have non-threatening grey question marks by them and "information" written in the column, others say "Warning" and have a yellow triangle, which give one a bit more cause for concern, and then there are these ones with the red X of which there many, even on a fairly fresh Win7 install, most of them I understand and have decided to ignore but I can see how someone who does not know much about Windows or the other software they might have on there system would be worried.

Re:Windows Errors

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is except for that one error, there were no errors.

Great work.

taking fake antivirus to the next level next time

[Joe_Dragon]

taking fake antivirus to the next level next time just say you work for best buy / a 3th party for the geek squad.

Thank you finally...

[mattbode]

This has been happening a lot in Australia. Now I can stop giving tech-support for my freaked out relatives after they were scammed.

Re:Thank you finally...

[quantumphaze]

In Australia this problem has been reported multiple times on News for Mums (A Current Affair and Today Tonight). I'm sure most people who would be scammed by this would have watched these reports.

This is News to Them?

[segedunum]

I've had countless calls from various companies based in India saying they're calling on behalf of Microsoft who have detected a virus on one of my computers and are offering to 'clean' it up. I don't even say anything now. The phone gets put straight down. It's been getting steadily worse these past few months.

Re:This is News to Them?

[Master Moose]

Over the months, I have had dozens of these calls. Seriously, I think in June, they would have called my landline more than anyone else.

First when they called they said they were calling from "Windows operating system" and that I had an error on my computer.

  Letting them know I didn't use windows, they wouldn't take no for an answer.

Telling them they were not going to catch me with their scam and that there is no company called "Windows Operating system"
and besides, I do not have a windows device in my house did not count.

The conversation went downhill. I was accused at being a smug Apple user that did not like Micorsoft (halfright - linux user) but when letting her know I did not use Apple she again assumed I must be on windows and was wondering why I was hampering her efforts at trying to help me.

At one stage she yelled at me for not listening, I yelled back at her for being the thick one not listening.

It is from there that she angrilly told me I was wasting her time and hung up on me.

Most other calls, I just hung up - or told them to go away, and that they weren't going to get me with their scam although there were a few that I let continue for a few minutes. And always the same.

One time they called me:

"Hello I am from....."
"Oh not again, Will you stop calling here with your scam"
"So you have been called before - well why wont you check the computer?"
"Because I know enough not to fall for it"
" For what?"
"You are tyring to get my information and money"
"Who told you that? We are trying to call to help you with problems that have been reported to us on your windows computer"
"Which computer? I don't use windows"
"You are Mac?"
"No"
"Well then you are windows and that is the computer"

The people doing the calling, always female, always persistant. I sometime wondered if they even knew that they were a part of a scam given their dilligence in tying to "get" me and their inability to quickly recognise when their attempts were going to be friutless

Re:This is News to Them?

[Barny]

Nope, you go the other way, see how much personal information you can find out about your caller. It can get fun, I even found out the colour of the guys underwear one time (had him check for me as he couldn't remember at the time).

Re:This is News to Them?

[5hoom]

I must have got the new guy when they called me. The caller claimed to be "from Windows" and wanted to fix my PC blah blah. I asked him again who he represented, and again he said he was "from Windows". Oh dear. Hanging up now.

Re:This is News to Them?

[marxzed]

This company (and I guess others operating the same scam) are one reason I now have an unlisted phone number. Obviously I don't fall for the crap (and apart from one rarely running XP virtual machine I only use Unix/Linux machines at home) but despite repetedly telling them I have no Windows computer the volume of calls went from beyond annoying to the point of rendering the telephone worthless as some nights and weekends I would receive between 2 to 4 calls an hour (yes an hour) from these callers.
New unlisted number, instant peace and quiet on a Sunday morning
Sadly going to my parents recently to help with gardening on a Sunday and answering multiple calls from these scammers over a four hour period confirms that they had not crawled in to hole and died just hadn't been able to call my new number. My parents are in their 90's and, while my father was one of the states earliest personal computer users and helped introduce early, pre Microsoft, PC's in to the education system, he's not even turned on any of his antique BBC Acorn/Amega/Atari/Apple II in at least a decade let alone ever owned a Windows computer.

Re:This is News to Them?

[deniable]

What happens if you tell them "I don't have a computer?" That would have been amusing.

Re:This is News to Them?

[hairyfeet]

They tried that with my mom, but apparently "mom logic" threw them so much they just sat there thinking about it for half a minute before saying a quick "thank you" and hanging up. When they said she had a bug mom told them "Oh I don't worry about such things, that is what having a geek son is for, along with paying for take out and driving me to the library". I guess that just didn't compute for them because she said they were just stunned for nearly a minute before giving up.

Re:This is News to Them?

[Isaac Remuant]

I think they probably use some sort of cheap VoIP system so that kind of tactic it's won't likely waste anything but their time. Not saying it's a bad thing though :P

Re:This is News to Them?

[prehistoricman5]

I got one of these calls once. I started ranting about how they were perpetrating a scam et cetera and then hung up. That was the last time they ever called. I only wish I had the presence of mind to play along in order to extract information out of the person on the other end.

Re:This is News to Them?

[adamrut]

I did a similar thing (the 3rd time they called me) except I played dumb and kept talking to them. Got passed through a couple of different guys before some grumpy guy had a go at me and hung up. Had them on the line for 27 minutes. That was the last time they called.

Re:This is News to Them?

[Warwick Allison]

Yes, keeping them on the line is one tactic. When I saw this report, I called THEM, laughed and told them they're going to lose their jobs. It's the only way to combat all teleassholing: you have to stop people from working for the company at a low enough wage. I tell them to go get a real job, to stop being an embarrassment to their nation (I.e. feeding racist sentiments shown above), that their occupation has the highest turnover of any (true), etc.

The sooner they quit, the sooner they can move on to doing something more rewarding with their lives, and the more expensive it becomes to run such "enterprises".

Re:This is News to Them?

[quantumphaze]

I doubt that they are wasting their time. I'm sure that their system switches to another victim when they are not talking to you. During my poor attempt at trolling one I would hear it cut out with a soft pop where it muted both ways leaving me hanging before the guy got back to me.

You are only wasting their time when directly engaging in conversation. Always ask for them to repeat that last thing because you are hard of hearing.

Re:This is News to Them?

[HopefulIntern]

You dont know how lucky you are! I would relish being phoned up by these people. The trolling potential is enormous. Set up a recording device, string them along, it is ever so funny picking them apart, dissecting their lies.

Re:This is News to Them?

[janimal]

From the comment, it seems that these ladies really do not know they are part of a scam. They're probably just as knowledgeable about computers as the people they are scamming. Sounds sort of like that fake Apple store in China, whose employees thought they were working for Apple, but in fact were not. The lady above probably really thinks she's working for Windows Operating System too....

Re:This is News to Them?

[HopefulIntern]

Kind of sad in a way, but I would not be able to resist messing with them a little bit. Maybe then talk to them about identifying a scam, and educating them a little bit.

Re:Outsourcing

[Lisias]

That's what we get for tolerating outsourcing to foreign countries.

In a first thought, as a potential beneficiary of USA software development outsourcing, I would protest about your statement.

But then I remembered when we, on a previous job of my on an embedded gadgets for automobiles industry, outsourced some device drivers to a certain country, well known (now) for some not so orthodox behavior on the Software Industry.

Well, there's nothing else to say except I second that....

Re:about freaking time!

[Anonymous Coward]

I trolled them on the 4th time they called in a week.

CS: OK, please click on START on the bottom right...
Me: I have nothing in the bottom right.
CS: Errrrr, then right-click on the status bar at the bottom of your screen...
Me: My status bar is at the top.
CS: Oh, right-click on that, then.
Me: What do you mean by right-click ?
CS: Press the right mouse button.
Me: I only have one mouse button.
CS: Then click on the status-bar.
Me: Sure, nothing happens.
CS: What version of Windows are you running ??
Me: Windows ???? Why the hell would I run a piece of crap Windows ? I haven't had a Windows box in this house for the last decade.
CS:

They called again 2 days later, and I just started screaming in the phone until they hung up. Haven't been called since.

Re:TIB

[Lisias]

they were rude

Once upon a time, I had Indian teammates working with me.

They were not rude (normally), au contraire, but their verbal politeness did not, at least on English, cope with ours. We took some time to learn how to communicate each other with (what both sides agreed it was) courtesy.

I take a even worst time with Chinese teammates over MSN conferences (we could not manage to understand our English accents! :-D). Without visual assurance, we never know for sure when we're making a praise for a job well done, or making a joke on a stupid mistake we did! X-P (even worst, sometimes what we thought was a stupid mistake was a well job done not understood at first glance).

Our texts, sometimes, were padded with "(this is a joke)" or "(this is a praise)". I remember at least one "(I still deciding if this is a joke or not)", but I don't remember who shoot that...

Looking in distance, it was hilarious. But at that time, not so much... :-)

Re:TIB

[Lisias]

where I wrote "I take", please read "I took".

(yes, English is not my mother language... Sorry...)

Hahahha

[Triklyn]

If you follow a link in the article to the original report, you'll find tons of comments about the domain names and the scam... and a few gems interspersed about the companies being so legit and helpful, in pretty broken english, by incredibly generic usernames. Those are some seriously hardcore scammers.

Re:Hahahha

[Isaac Remuant]

Thanks for that, man. It's really impressive and very funny. It makes the copmuter fast and yuo get free things to b e hppy :P:

"This is Rex and i would like to inform you that i m happy with the tech support service and the most important thing is that i will get unlimited services for the upcoming one year free of charge whenever i want in my computer and i m extremly happy.

Fraud

[Enderandrew]

If it is documented that they routinely defrauded people for money, why are they not in jail?

Re:Fraud

[martin-boundary]

Say it ain't so! Can't Obama just make a phone call and have the Indians extradited to America?

Re:Fraud

[godel_56]

"If it is documented that they routinely defrauded people for money, why are they not in jail?"

Jurisdiction.

. . . and bribes.

Re:Fraud

[kiore]

Because they are in one country and try and defraud people in a second country.

To put them in jail it would be necessary for the police in the target country to do a lot of paperwork and liaise with the police in the source country.

As each crime is only for a couple of hundred dollars each time the police probably can't be bothered with making the effort.

Thank you Microsoft

[Pirow]

I'm hoping this bad publicity puts Comantra out of business, but they'll most likely just disappear and pop up under a different name.

My family members have had calls from a few of these companies and my 84 year old grandpa was recently scammed out of around £85 and had his computer filled with their malware which really pissed me off, he'd just bought a license key for MS Office then a few days later got a call from "Microsoft Windows help desk" or similar saying they've detected a virus on his computer, blah, blah, blah, install our software, pay us money and you'll be fine.

We really need somebody to go after the people who actually process the payments, if the scammers could only accept payment through western union or bit coins it would trigger a lot more alarm bells in their victims heads. Given the right circumstances even intelligent people who are just a little naive can be taken in by these scammers.

Re:Thank you Microsoft

[catmistake]

This isn't directed at you personally or your grampa... but I'm always wondering... "why Windows?" and then reading your post I realize "oh, Office..." but then I'm left thinking "why Office?"

It really is 2011, and we really do have 31 flavors of OS to suit every need, and even though I'd estimate at least 75%-85% of all computer users have only the "need" for something along the lines of a simplistic Chrome-like OS, we (as consumers and IT afficionados alike) still shoehorn in that Swiss army knife monstrosity that Windows truely is into their worlds... sapping away the precious moments of life 100K proc cycles at a time. What is wrong with us that we allow such a thing as someone asking for pencil and paper and a simple, safe letter opener and receiving instead something as complex as a miniaturized Heidelberg offset press and a jaggy 5-pound Victorinox abomination?

Re:Thank you Microsoft

[black3d]

Okay, but extend that "need" into "want", and suddenly you'll find most PC gamers can't manage at all with a simplistic Chrome-like OS. If you exclude "business" users from your percentage, you'll find your target audience for a simple idiot-proof OS on home PCs dwindles significantly. Sure, they're still out there. And I wholly support giving grandma Ubuntu (or even something simplier), Firefox and Thunderbird, and letting her have at it! She doesn't need to do anything else, so anything else is just bloat. But it's not 75-80% of the home user market that applies to. I doubt it's even 50%. This is why Windows is still going strong (well, that, and the fact that it comes pre-installed on most PCs).

Most folks I know don't buy pre-made PCs, but get friends to price up and build them for them. They're "more power" machines, not "email and messenger" machines. Sure, there's still a market for K.I.S.S, but as each successive generation gets more tech-clued, folks want more options, not less. As the tablet-OS-on-desktops is beginning to take off, we may see this plateau and diverge into two markets - but I don't think you'll find the simple OS market anywhere near as high as 80% for home users - at least not for their primary PC. "Entertainment centers", sure.

So in the camp of folks who do want a more powerful, diverse OS, why WIndows instead of Linux? Linux isn't ready yet. It's at an ideal point as a Simple OS - see Grandma example above. But it's by no means ready as a replacement for Windows for the folks who want to use the additional functionality, but don't want to have to learn how to tinker with the OS. Thesedays, one should never have to see a command prompt to do ANYTHING, in normal usage. Retaining a command prompt for common usage is holding back the Linux desktop from widespread adoptance. There are too many common, complex functions in Linux, which are simple in Windows.

Agreed - there's far too much to Windows. But disagree that that fact has virtually any impact on the user. There's no aspect of the interface or interactions I have with the Windows OS that are any faster in Linux. When I finish this text and hit Preview, it won't happen faster in Linux. When I then close the browser and switch across to my Steam window, it wouldn't happen any faster in Linux. There's no distinguishable speed differential on modern-day 64-bit, 8-core PCs.

Re:Thank you Microsoft

[catmistake]

I believe you overestimate what most are doing with their desktop, even many of those in the office, but definately not gamers, and not developers. One must look at the application. I think you, sir. would be surprised looking at a list of all the applications you yourself used in, say, the last 2 weeks. and how much time spent with each. No doubt, even some power users might only have a list of a half dozen applications used. If the list is shorter, say 2 or 3 applications, then the user doesn't need a Windows license, or even a full desktop computer. IMHO most, yes most (and I think 75%-85% was extremely conservative) of ALL computer users (not most gamers or most office workers or whatever, but of all) fit into that category of only having used 2 or 3 applications in the last 2 weeks, if not a single application (which is of course the esteemed and venerable browser, often confused with "The Internet").

Re:Thank you Microsoft

[black3d]

Right - you're back to "all". Understand - I have no disagreement with you over office workers. I'm simply trying to point out you *shouldn't* refer to home users and office workers in the same breath as "computer users". The needs of the two are completely, entirely different. Office workers could generally be given a stripped down OS with 1 or 2 applications that they need and their work lives would be complete.

But that's no argument for home users (which OP was referring to) to be abandoning Windows. There's no comparison between the two. OP was talking about his grandpa at home, and your response was that "because x% of all computer users could get by without Windows, almost nobody should be using it", includes office workers. Without them, your statistic of how many people could get by without Windows drops significantly.

I concur that a significant percentage of home users would be able to get by on a "tablet OS" on their PC, however for the home PC market (again, what OP was referring to, and what you started arguing against by dragging in statistics which don't relate to the home market), a tablet-OS would not be suitable for anywhere near "75-85%".

Car analogy time: The majority of pedestrians in Beijing utilize bicycles as their primary form of transport. 2 wheels. However, a large percentage of the population drive cars (or utilise busses) which have 4 or more wheels. If Joe buys a car with 4 wheels, you're suggesting that "you don't need a car with 4 wheels.. you only need 3 at the most! 75-85% of the population only need 2 wheels!". The fact they do is irrelevant to the fact that his car needs 4 wheels, and the fact that the majority of the population use 2 only skews the population-to-wheels statistic. It's completely irrelevant when considering how many wheels Joe's car should have.

The point is - when we're talking about home users, it's completely irrelevant to bring in any statistic which involves office workers and what their needs are. Home users needs are vastly different. While some have limited, or even the same needs, most have greater versatility needs than office workers do, thus their statistic is just a distraction to a conversation about home users. Tell me what percentage of HOME USERS (again, which OP was talking about and which you started arguing against) could get by with a tablet OS? Although, I'm not likely to get a sensible answer, as follows...

. No doubt, even some power users might only have a list of a half dozen applications used. If the list is shorter, say 2 or 3 applications, then the user doesn't need a Windows license, or even a full desktop computer.

I think there's not really much point in every trying to argue with you when you make statements like this. The needs to the application determine what a user requires, not the number of applications one uses, especially when you bring games into the equation. We're nowhere near cloud-processing Crysis 2 yet.

Re:Thank you Microsoft

[KinnearP]

None of those flavors, except Windows, provide the full range of options that home users like to pick and choose their experience from. MacOS is getting close. Linux isn't an option for many home users, in its current state.

Re:Thank you Microsoft

[black3d]

A console window is a command prompt. You need to use it to install a great deal of Linux software. Alternatively, I've never needed to use the command prompt in the past 2 years on any of my WIndows boxes. I'm not sure quite what you're trying to say. In normal usage, one never has to see a command prompt in Windows.

The key words here are normal usage.

Installing software is normal usage for a home user. This frequently requires a bash prompt in Linux. It doesn't under Windows.

Checking netstat is not normal usage for a home user. Performing a timed shutdown via console is not normal usage. Please give an example of a command prompt action which a normal user is required to undertake in Windows. Because what you've claimed is.. backwards. Most Windows users I know have _never_ been to a command prompt, and their PC works fine...

Re:about freaking time!

[pwizard2]

Awhile back, I got one of these too. They told me that my "PC was serving malware and it was traced to my IP" or something like that. Since my public IP address is static, I asked them what IP address this supposed malware was coming from. They gave me a bullshit number and hung up.

Re:about freaking time!

[Moryath]

Funny. If you ask them to name the virus supposedly serving up something, they also hang up.

Re:about freaking time!

[crafty.munchkin]

Mine too. Sadly my old man didn't think to conference me in to the call...

Re:TIB

[Isaac Remuant]

There's a lot of things you don't know, clearly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Definitions

That should help.

It's all in the i

[owlstead]

"After spending two hours trying to solve a print problem, I remember co-mantra and with the repeat very patient and competent help, i can now relax. Many thanks co-mantra, I have a felling that it was a good day when i joined your organization."

Yeah, that's about the gist of all the comments on their website. They are all from English sounding names (James Wood) that use constructs nobody would use.

"...repeat very patient and competent help..." yeah, rinse and repeat.
"...felling..." I've got a feeling it's a scam alright
"...i joined your organization..." just to get help support, goodness me, all that traveling

And then you start looking, and find out that nobody of the "commenters" uses uppercase "I" except at the start of sentences. Hmm, might I suggest that all this was written by the same person?

Re:TIB

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I didn't know "Indian" was a race.

It's as meaningful a racial grouping as any other.

Corollaries are left as an exercise for the reader.

The main reason this scam works.

[techno-vampire]

Most computer users aren't geeks, and they don't know how to tell if their computer's infected or not. What they do know, however, is that every single version of Microsoft Windows is full of security holes and that there are millions of viruses, trojans and other malware out there looking for computers to infect. If that weren't true, if Microsoft would clean up its act and put out an operating system that was designed from the bottom up to be secure this type of scam would be impossible.

Re:The main reason this scam works.

[osu-neko]

Most computer users aren't geeks...

Not terribly relevant. The issue is, these are people giving their credit card number to someone who cold-called them on the phone. They didn't even place the call, so it's not like they even know what phone number they dials -- they received a call from someone who could be anyone for all they know, and then gave them their credit card number. Placing a call and giving your credit card number to the person at the organization you called is one thing, but giving it to someone who called you out of the blue?

Amount of technical knowledge here is irrelevant. These people have a common sense deficiency.

Re:The main reason this scam works.

[techno-vampire]

So what you're saying is, this scam works because it targets gullible people. Who'd of thunk it?

Similar scams

[YrWrstNtmr]

This is similar to the car warranty call scams of a couple of years ago. "Hello, your car warranty is about to expire, blah blah blah."
The scammers do not care that you are on whatever DNC registry exists in your country. They call anyway, using false phone numbers. And call multiple times a week.

I used to make a game of it, seeing how long I could keep them on the line.
My best was 30 minutes, ending with "You do realize that the only reason I am talking to you is to keep you from bothering some other person at dinnertime, and that you will never, ever get a dime out of me."

Re:Similar scams

[drinkypoo]

Nobody does that any more though. If a robot calls you then it just tells you to call an 800 number. A really fancy one might be able to tell the difference between a human and an answering machine, but probably not. Now they call multiple times in a row. I've been getting that "you might have a court issue" spam literally three times in a row in the evening. I actually checked (the old fashioned way) and I don't have a legal issue of any kind (I looked up my name anywhere I've ever had a problem, which has always just been traffic stuff.) There's no way that isn't outright harassment, and if I call them back then clearly I want to talk to them, so now I can't really say anything nasty to them, or waste their time, because I've called them. Sleazebags.

Re:Similar scams

[sgt scrub]

If voice recognition was better you could let A.L.I.C.E. loose on them. Chumping them into believing the "home owner" has to talk through a voice assisted microphone or something might be necessary but it sure would be fun as hell if you were successful.

Credit Card

[Billlagr]

Serious question - if the payments are made by CC, can't you just go to your CC provider, dispute it as fraudulent, and have it charged back? Or are the CC providers of the 'you consented, tough luck sucker' mindset?

Re:about freaking time!

[Nursie]

They called me and got an earful of abuse, because it was saturday morning, when I like to be asleep.

Them: "Hello sir, I am from "
Me: "Never heard of them"
Them: "We have been doing a survey and noticed that there are a large number of virus infections in your area"
Me: "So this is a scam then?"
Them: "No sir this is not a scam"
Me:"Fine, whatever, carry on"
Them: "Sir this is not a scam. We noticed you have a windows computer in your house that connects to the internet"
Me: "So you wake me up on a Saturday morning and lie to me TWICE? F*CK OFF and die you bastard scammers"
Them: "No sir this is not a scam"
Me; "I hope your whole family dies in pain, go fuck yourself" /I hang up

I may have gone a bit over the top there... but these arseholes phone people who won't realise what's going on and will fall for it. Absolute bastards.

Re:about freaking time!

[wetpainter]

I asked them to tell me which version of Windows I was using (I use a Mac) and then I would give them the access they wanted. They couldn't of course, but I did manage to keep them on the phone for nearly an hour. They said they would tell me the version as soon as I gave them remote access. I got moved up a level to a supervision who continued to stay "on script". I offered to transfer $1000 into his personal bank account immediately if he could correctly tell me the OS version. This offer got them VERY excited but they eventually gave up after the first guess was made. It still amazes me anyone could fall for this crap.

Re:Format + Reinstall?

[norpy]

That's what I did for my dad (and upgraded him from XP to 7 at the same time) when he fell for the scam a while back. Luckily he wasn't out any money because the company's accounts got shut down before his payment was processed.

Even if it wasn't necessary it certainly drove home the "Never listen to cold callers" lesson when he had his work laptop offline for a couple of days.

Re:about freaking time!

[Tolkien]

Mum and I both got called as well, after I hung up on them I called mum immediately to tell her what to expect, she called back (I had to leave a message) and said they had already called, she could tell it was a scam. I taught her well. :D

Re:The two I talked to apparently couldn't hang up

[Introspective]

Then again, it's possible that the minimum wage staff in their call centre honestly believe that the script they're following is legit.
From the calls I've got myself and the ones reported by others, it really sounds like the callers truly believe what they're saying and don't know much better.

Mother-in-law actually got one of these calls

[roc97007]

Holy Mackerel. My mother-in-law actually got one of these calls. She said someone with a nearly unintelligable accent had called saying he was from her ISP and he could see that her computer had a dangerous infection.

Now, mother-in-law is one of the most internet-savvy non-geeks I have ever met. Her first response was "how? the computer is turned off." He babbled something about how they could still tell and insisted she turn it on right now and follow his instructions very carefully. She said he was very excited and talked very forcefully and urgently.

She told him no, she didn't think that was necessary, her son-in-law does all her administration and she was pretty sure her computer was safe. He abruptly hung up. She immediately called me and told me about it. I asked her to boot up, logged in remotely, poked around and started a virus scan. Nothing. Obvious scam.

Re:Mother-in-law actually got one of these calls

[Grench]

My parents got one of these calls too (Dad runs a custom-built desktop PC with Ubuntu, Mum runs a Dell laptop with Windows 7).

My Mum didn't believe the guy, so she passed him over to my Dad, who spoke to them, asking them how they got their number and how they knew there was a problem, but without giving any personal information.

Eventually, the guy got fed up, told my Dad to "Go to hell" and hung up the call. I've never seen my Dad so pissed off.

Re:Mother-in-law actually got one of these calls

[imroy]

My Grandpa got duped by this group a little while ago. He was never very tech savvy and is now going senile. And his vision is going too. The description in the summary is just about spot-on. He found some local PC tech to check out his machine and found it clean. Amazingly it looked like the scammers were simply after the money. He managed to cancel the payment and eventually got new credit cards. IIRC, it took Mum and her siblings a while to convince him to do that though. He thought he was safe because the local tech hadn't found anything on his PC, but they could have taken any of his banking and other details.

Drag the call out

[Nuisance]

I like these calls. If it comes in an evening and I have nothing to do I try and drag them out for as long as possible. The enjoyment hearing the reaction of the person at the other end when you finally tell them you work in IT, know it is a scam and that you were dragging the call out so that they had less time to call other people is priceless. Think the longest was a bit over an hour before I got bored with it.

Re:Drag the call out

[Phoobarnvaz]

Think the longest was a bit over an hour before I got bored with it.

Another way to handle this is start throwing out phrases in other languages. Pissed off a girl years ago with these two phrases..."No Habla English" and "No Habla Espanol". She kept switching between each language...then it would be the other language. She hung up and called back a few minutes later...so she got it again in German and Russian. This time...she didn't call back since I wasted about 10 minutes of her time.

If you really wanted to play with callers from India...start doing the same thing in their language and several others from the area. Can't be too difficult to tell them you don't speak English in their own language.

Re:Drag the call out

[tonywestonuk]

I've got to about an hour, before they told me 'I can go to hell'.....

I managed to keep them talking while I setup a new VM from scratch, and then let them butcher that one believeing it was a real PC. And, then resetting it back to its original state a few times, after supposed crashes!..... haha. They havent phoned me back!

Re:about freaking time!

[earthforce_1]

You should have said windows 3.1, or windows for workgroups. Just to see what the hell they would do.

Re:taking fake antivirus to the next level next ti

[corychristison]

taking fake antivirus to the next level next time just say you work for best buy / a 3th party for the geek squad.

I am not familiar with this 3th, is it some kind of drink?
</sarcasm>

Re:about freaking time!

[arth1]

Same here. The tosser said that my IP address was 192.168.1.100, which probably is true for the inside LAN of many of the victims they try to scam, but a bold faced direct lie anyhow, because you don't see the internal address through a NAT - that's the whole point.

Anyhow, I hope these guys will end up on FBIs list, and if they ever set foot on US soil, that they'll rot in jail. Those who got tricked? Don't give them a dime back; consider it a stupid tax.

Re:Trust

[norpy]

How about never trust a cold caller?
What does the race have ANYTHING to do with it. A cold caller wants your money and doesn't know you from a bar of soap.

AMMYY

[tkrotchko]

AMMYY is a remote desktop program (http://www.ammyy.com/en/solutions.html) and it makes sense why they'd try to get someone to install it.

Re:AMMYY

[lazybeam]

I once had one that got me to go to logmein123.com and enter a six digit code. Do any of these work with Linux? I was thinking about popping in a live cd and letting them at it, but I didn't have one handy at the time, and I didn't trust them with my main Ubuntu install. I could only manage about 20 minutes of stringing out though ("my computer is really slow today!") before I got bored.

Re:Outsourcing

[mug funky]

i wonder why this got modded down?

though it's not a completely fair model of outsourcing, the only part it misses is that quite often the standard of living is improved in the country outsourced to (not just the top 1%).

of course, that corresponds to a subtle drop in living standard in the country outsourced from...

i wonder if those free market types are aware that they have the same goals as communism?

Personal experience

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually had these calls, and it's much more sinister than this article makes out. The first couple of times I got the call I just told them to go screw themselves, but by the third time I found myself interested in what the scam was. I booted up a VM and played along with their whole Event Viewer deal, and gave them access via their remote support tool. They asked for my card details, which I responded to with fake details. It seems they didn't actually try to put any payment through immediately, though, because they weren't alerted by the fake info. A little worrying, because it implies that they were "saving them for later".

Here's the part the article misses out - what they install as a "fix" is in fact spyware, which collects browsing information and Outlook emails. I got in touch with the phone company and found the company name and, upon discovering that they were a Gold Partner, immediately reported it to Microsoft along with a copy of the spyware. The response I got was rather generic and bland, so I can't tell if Microsoft knew about the malware side of it beforehand, or were just discovering it. Maybe the scam didn't initially involve the spyware, I don't know.

This was about a month ago, so I can't help but feel that the added threat of spyware is what tipped it for them. I just don't understand why they didn't drop them over a year ago when the issue was first raised.

It generalizes

[FrootLoops]

Scam artists do the same thing in many specialized fields--stock-based Ponzi schemes, cherry picked or badly reported statistics (typically surveys, often with ignored error margins), crap new age philosophy promising wealth based on quantum physics, Nigerian prince bank transactions, etc. Sometimes they can be recognized from general principles, like when they come to you instead of you coming to them, or when the things they say are too good to be true. Other times it's really hard to sort out the truth from plausible fiction, like that old line that 75% of all people who have ever lived are alive now. Statistics are particularly bad in this way. They're wonderful in skilled and honest hands, but they're terrible in the hands of a novice or a manipulator.

A lot of older people just aren't used to dealing with scams. I imagine scams like these will need to become significantly more sophisticated as more tech-savvy generations age.

Re:about freaking time!

[mlush]

You should have said windows 3.1, or windows for workgroups. Just to see what the hell they would do.

Next time they ring I'm planning spend 20-30 minutes doing something like this.

A computer running slow? Oh yes I have I'm really glad you called... I'll just boot it up.... (sound FX of me wandering round the house) turn it on.. Oh its not working... (more faffing round) Oops it was unplugged... OK Booting ... booting... OK I've got the prompt w... i... n.... OK its starting ... starting .... starting Argh Its bluescreened its a very poorly puppy I'm glad of your help. I'll try again (on the third attempt) OK I'm in windows just start up Mosaic it sometimes takes a couple of minutes... whats the weather like at your end? (after a few other network problems) OK I've downloaded your program double clicked on it Oh I've got an error saying that this is a 32 bit program and won't run on a 16 bit system ... do you have one that supports Windows 3.1?

Interesting site you have there

[quantumphaze]

If you look at the image of the Comantra web site in the PCPro article you may notice that they copied the KMail icon for step 1 and step 2 shows a copied Macbook icon (for a Windows "support" site)

Re:I stopped the calls by talking to them

[ledow]

I know NOTHING about cars.

But if a stranger phones me up in the middle of the night claiming to be from "Ford Motor Company", telling me that they need me to send them the car keys, or leave the car unlocked so they can come and "fix" it, I will be inherently suspicious and won't part with anything for anything short of a court order.

They could claim to be "recalling" my car - that would be fine. I'd hang up, phone Ford's and check if that's true (as well as checking news stories). It's not difficult if they are REALLY genuine, they will let me do that, on the number that *I* choose (i.e. the actual Ford service department number taken from their website or a phone directory). I bet you Ford would never have heard of them.

If a bank phone me up claiming that I need to pay them £1000, that's fine. You tell me my account number, you give *ME* my details. No? I'll just have to hang up and go through my bank's telephone support lines then to see what the problem is.

(I have seen people answer a ringing phone only to then IMMEDIATELY give out their bank security details on the basis that someone who knew their name said that it was the bank calling about a problem and "could you just give me the 3rd and 4th characters of your password..." Er. No. Because I have *NO* idea who you are. You tell me my secret question / other details first and then we'll talk. Or else you give me your name/department and ***I*** will ring the main bank switchboard and ask to be put through to you.)

Just because you're not literate in a subject does not mean you should be stupid about it. I have absolutely zero qualifications in car repair - but I know if someone is trying to rip me off. This is the equivalent of someone on the street asking for your car and keys for 48 hours in order to clean your tyres.

Even if I had zero knowledge of computers, I would be inherently suspicious that someone "knew" what my machine was doing.

First off, it would be illegal for them to know such things (you KNOW what programs I'm running on my personal computer and decide to contact me about it? Nope), secondly, I would need to know who they are and how they got my phone number (which, again, would be illegal unless I'd given it to THAT named company - which would be highly unlikely), thirdly they have absolutely no business interfering with my personal machine (no matter what they say), fourthly as soon as they start giving me instructions (actually ORDERS on things for me to do) they will be hung up on. Your phone company don't ring you and say "Can you just pop outside and hook your phone line back up for us?". You want it fixed? You come and do it.

Fifth, if they had an INCREDIBLY convincing story about why I needed to buy their service, that's fine. I'll buy it from a vendor that *I* want and won't give you my credit card details over the phone.

At worst, being very gullible, you'd make me unplug my machine (because I might be "breaking the Internet" or something, and that's why you phoned me, I don't know) and either get someone of MY choice in to look at it, or at least ask someone knowledgeable their opinion on the phone call. Why do I know that's what sensible people would do? Because perfectly-sensible, non-computer people ask me about things like this ALL THE TIME.

It's only the idiots that do what they are told, and hand over their computer/credit card to a complete stranger without checking that are the problem. It has NOTHING to do with computer literacy.

Tip: Ask what company they work for. If you haven't heard of them, hang up. If they claim to be acting on behalf of "your" phone company / energy company / ISP, ask them to name it. Ask them for your customer number. In all the scam calls (and even people knocking on my door) that I receive for these things, nobody has yet passed that test. Even if they COULD, I still won't let them do anything without knowing they work for the company (it's easy, after all, to pick up an old bill from the tra

Sigh

[LizardKing]

My elderly neighbour got scammed by this lot. They actually knew some information that could have only have come from a previous support call to her ISP -an ISP that has a call centre in the same Indian city. I've since learnt that a number of Indian call centre firms are selling data to scammers, and that the Indian authorities don't give a damn since it's bringing in foreign revenue.

Good for MS

[hesaigo999ca]

Taking a stand like this should just be the tip of the iceberg, but unfortunately, this is only to bring up stock prices temporarily. MS has a long way to go before they do the right thing all around. Many companies associated to them have practices resembling this....

Re:Outsourcing

[dcavanaugh]

I suspect you got modded down by someone who profits from outsourcing on the buyer's side. The CIO who chooses outsourcing often gets some nifty perks and -- best of all -- a happy landing if he/she gets fired when the outsourcing strategy goes into epic fail mode. In the short run, it scores brownie points with CFO and CEO types while maintaining one's membership in the executive golf committee. When things go wrong, a smart executive knows how to get paid for failure. I know of several CIOs who bungled major outsourcing initiatives. Each of them landed a job with the outsourcer or a nifty promotion to another company where the same outsourcer already had a big presence. Nothing can propel your career like a well-managed failure. There is money to be made by properly managing a cycle of fail.

Below the executive level, you have the entire food chain of outsourced employees, who do the same jobs that conventional employees did before. Remember that many companies have dreadful salary scales for IT. In a past life, I had arguments with my HR department's treatment of IT positions. In many cases, they "require" a BSCS or above, while offering a salary less than an executive secretary. Sometimes outsourcing is the only way a company will allow itself to get a halfway intelligent person to work in IT. The stereotype is that good paying jobs are cut and cheapie temps take over. Employers love the concept, but reality can be a different story. The temp jobs are not always temporary and the hourly rates can be several times what a "permanent" employee would cost. But you won't find that in the brochure.

And lets not forget the additional people who work in the overhead departments of outsourcers. You have accounting people, a large well-paid sales department, and various executives that form the basis of a corporate management team that would not even exist if companies managed IT internally. If any of them are reading your post, they'll mod it down too!

Sometimes employees get screwed by outsourcing, but at least half the time it's the customer who gets fleeced. If you can't be part of the solution, there is money to be made by prolonging the problem.

Re:Troll them

[dcavanaugh]

Wasting 10 minutes of their time on the phone is a good start, but teledroids don't cost enough for the scammers to worry about.

Your throwaway VM idea is interesting. I wonder if you can get into any trouble by launching an attack against someone who is trying to scam you. Who are they going to call? These phony helpers might be more fun than a trip to Disney. My guess is their environment is not prepared for everything a bunch of angry Slashdotters might try. If they get clobbered, it will take a lot longer than 10 minutes to get back online.

seems simple enough my mother can understand it

[Thud457]

howzabout not giving confidential information, like your credit card number, any Jim, Lakshmi or Boris that calls you up ?
Doesn't matter if there's a compootor involved or not.

Sure he will

[Fujisawa Sensei]

He will, but only if their company hijacks 4 planes, blows up 2 buildings, attacks the pentagon with one of the hijacked planes, and kills a few thousand civilians.

Re:TIB

[LunaticTippy]

I've had the same experience with Indian and Chinese coworkers. You did a good job describing it despite using a non-native language. I never thought to explicitly state my mindset in order to avoid misinterpreting each other, what a good idea! (this is a praise)

Calls from India

[Immigration.to.Canad]

Yeah there was a couple of month when Mobilicity and Wind customers were getting random calls from India and some strange people were trying to talk them into wiring money somewhere. That was really bizarre, 'cause people who called had heavy accents and were really, really rude - not a good way to scam at all. :) Glad that problem is now solved.