Slashdot Mirror
65,000 Complaints Later, Microsoft Files Suit Against Tech Support Scammers
MojoKid (1002251) writes Tech support scammers have been around for a long time and are familiar to most Slashdot readers. But last month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it had issued lawsuits against several culprits responsible for tech support scams. Now Microsoft has announced that it too is going after tech support scammers. According to the company, more than 65,000 complaints have been made about tech support scams since May of this year alone. Bogus technicians, pretending to represent Microsoft, call the house offering fake tech support and trick people into paying hundreds of dollars to solve a non-existent issue. If successful in their ruse, the scammer then gains access to a person's computer, which lets them steal personal and financial information and even install malware.
I managed to keep one of these guys on the phone for about 20 minutes while I stumbled through his directions, over and over, "rebooting," pretending to be using Windows, etc; the next one caught on more quickly. Have they called you? If so, how did the call go?
"...the next one caught on my quickly." (?)
Maybe the complaint system only support 2^16 entries?
If I have the time I like to keep these people on the phone. My record so far is an hour and fifty minutes. I have a honeypot system ready to go and it's fun and informative to see how they operate. Keeping them busy means they have less time to prey on somebody else less compueter savvy. I see it as a public service.
he has mild Alzheimer's, but enjoys talking on the phone with anyone. he knows nothing about computers.
before I got bored. He, and his "supervisor of tech support" was already spitting mad so when I thanked him for playing the fool and provide me with some laughs it pushed him over the edge. My shtick is to pretend to be an elderly man, who off course has trouble hearing so they have to s p e l l r e a l s l o w l y and i still mess it up, have them explain the internet (isn't it that cable thingy that I plug in the wall? You want me to disconnect it?) all while obviously being vey very worried about them virus things. I've seen them talk about it on TV. Is it like Ebola? I don't want to get that.Of course none of his instructions worked because I don't use Windows.
The trick is to appear complaint while being confused and incompetent. The couple of times he doubted my old age gimmick I thanked him and joked the ladies tell me that as well.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I usually say I have 25-30 computers, and ask them to tell me which one has the problem. Reasoning that they called me and must be able to know which unit it is. They will either be confused and pass me to the "next support level" or say it doesn't matter which unit I log in to. At that point I insist they tell me which unit it is. By this time they usually use some foul language and/or simply hang up. Mission accomplished.
If automakers built cars that crashed as often as all the versions of Windows, the earth's population would be about 1,000 people today.
*** Don't be dull.***
That way any sales call in itself would be a felony if that special prefix is not displayed clearly.
Hey! We could stop crime by passing a law to make it illegal! That would definitely keep those criminals from calling.
Bonus points for going directly to making this a felony. I'm bothered by the stench of my neighbors' preparing fish head stew. Can that be a felony, too? What about if they paint their front door red? I hate that.
Rather than pointlessly inflating the number of felonies in this country, I suggest that you instead obtain a Google Voice number and start giving that out instead of your real number. With GV, you can mark callers as spammers and they will get a "number disconnected" tone if they call back. You can also block people so they go straight to voicemail while others ring through.
Smart scammers (but not these ones) would stop, as they are only wasting their own time calling someone they already know will not fall for their pitch.
Although that seems obvious, quite a lot of legitimate businesses, charities, politicians, etc., have quite a bit of trouble understanding it.
was the magic number 65536?
That's enough complaints for anybody.
Until a local hospital calls you to let you know your kids got a broken leg...
All the trademarks. Middle of the day, thick Indian accent, said he was from Microsoft support, said there was a problem.
He really was. He was calling me about a ticket I had opened with Azure support. Go figure.
Boring Little Story About My Windows
Right... and that's why you always pirate windows.
It's sad that the pirated version of an OS is better than the legit version, but with windows it's a fact.
I understood that reference.
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
The person who called me didn't get far because I told him right away that I know it's a scam.
Then he threatened to kill me and my family. That was a little unsettling.
Until a local hospital calls you to let you know your kids got a broken leg...
I've seen people drive themselves to distraction with your logic. They start sweating when their phone gets to one bar, and refuse to go anywhere with no cell service. Or drive through long highway tunnels. And yet....... somehow we've been able to survive all this time without everyone having instant access to us.
Talk about your first world problems.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Scammer: We have detected a denial of service attack launched from your IP address. You need to follow our instructions right now or all of your billing information will be all over the web.
Me: How did you find all of this out?
Scammer: The Microsoft security server flagged your computer as launching a DOS attack on the Whitehouse web site and then began sending out your credit card information to a torrent. There is no doubt that your identity is being hacked. Check your bank account to see if there are any transactions not authorized by you.
Me: So you work for Microsoft?
Scammer: Yes. This is Microsoft support. That's how we know that your computer has been compromised.
Me: You are not. You are a f*n scammer! I don't even have a windows computer on my network.
Scammer: Well, it is your IP address that is originating the DOS attack. What operating system do you run?
Me: Fedora 20 Heisenbug development release.
Scammer: That may be why. There is a vulnerability in the latest development release of Fedora that would allow attackers to do exactly what your computer is doing now. Your identity is being broadcast all over the Internet as we speak. Can you halt your computer?
Me: Let me take a look at the network traffic first.
Scammer: ...
Me: Wireshark shows no incoming or outgoing traffic that is out of the ordinary.
Scammer: That's what I am trying to tell you. The vulnerability sends the packets using the raw network interface so you will not see the packets in any traffic captures.
Me: Wait one second! I know the network stack in Fedora backwards and forwards. Traffic is captured from the Ethernet interface just before it is shipped out over the wire.
Scammer: The exploit actually replaces the Ethernet driver. What you are seeing is what the hacker wants you to see and no more. If you aren't going to shut down your computer, I will! Give me the root password!
Me: lol
Most of these are little sweatshop ops out of India, China and Eastern Europe.
Microsoft can scream at the FTC all damn day. These guys, if caught, just uproot, disappear, and come back under another business name, registering new phone numbers, etc.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This place reads like a combination of Penthouse Letters, Soldier of Fortune, and Byte magazine.
I used to get these calls. They kept calling from the same number, so I set up a redirect on my VOIP system that routed their calls to the FBI office in my state capitol. My logs showed they chatted for just over thee minutes!
A friend and I had some fun at the Jehovah's Witnesses' expense about 30 years ago. I was over at his place, and there was a knock at the door. He peeked outside and said "Dude, it's the Jehovah's Witnesses, come here!" He threw his arm around me and answered the door in a very lispy voice, and they were mostly speechless. He then looked at me and said, "Well hun, I don't guess they have anything to say, so let's go back to bed!" and shut the door on them. He never got another knock again.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
MS didn't sue earlier because it's really hard to find a legal entity to sue. When you get one of these calls, the thing calling you is not directly attached to a land line. It's a software pbx system that may be running on a compromised machine in some part of the world. The call only gets connected to the person you talk to after you connect and the system determines you may be a real person willing to talk to someone. The calls get routed through compromised voip service providers, compromised pbx systems, or termination lines leased with false id and credit cards. By the time the provider knows what's happening, tens of thousands of calls have been made and the front end system just moves to another provider. As to "opting out" -- only legitimate telemarketing organizations bother with do not call lists. These asshats just random dial. It's cheaper.
To figure out who to sue, you have to participate in the scam long enough to have an actual transaction processed and then follow the money -- but that's not so simple now. Most of these particular kinds of scams don't accept payment at the telecenter you're talking to. They just install the ransomware on the pc. Then once you're already compromised you have to pay someone else -- through a web site, a wire payment, or some other mechanism that's much easier to hide than just a credit card transaction.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
...so far is 3 hrs 49 min.
Taking that logic to the extreme we survived without electricity too.
Not my point. trying to take my point to the extreme would be saying someone panics if they can't see a functional electrical outlet.
I mean seriously, I've had more than one occasion where a person has become very antsy because we were in an area with no cell coverage while traveling. "What if someone needs to get hold of me?"
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
We've also seen a sharp decrease in infantile mortality rates, disease spread, disease mortality, and much more besides in the past few decades. So aside from your fairly obvious strawman (not wanting to drive through long tunnels, really?),
Yes, really. A passenger in a car I was driving pulled out his phone going through the Squirrel Hill tunnel near Pittsburgh and was nervous about it for the short time we were in the tunnel. Another got very nervous while driving through Northern PA, and actually wanted me to pull over so he could hop outside the car to check to see if he could get a signal that way. Another stood on the roof of his car trying to get s sign. Just in case.
You'll be glad the person who sees you get into a car crash has a cellphone on them.
Especially when they were texting and the cause of the accident
Which is also part of my smartphones as an addiction jeremiad. Do you deny that it is a dangerous thing to text and drive? Anyone who TWD's puts their life and others at real risk every time they are doing it. But they think it is okay, and important, otherwise they wouldn't do it. Deny that is an addiction - it is electronic meth.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Until a local hospital calls you to let you know your kids got a broken leg...
I've seen people drive themselves to distraction with your logic. They start sweating when their phone gets to one bar, and refuse to go anywhere with no cell service. Or drive through long highway tunnels. And yet....... somehow we've been able to survive all this time without everyone having instant access to us.
Talk about your first world problems.
First world problems? If you've never been to the 3rd world, you're not allowed to use that line. It just makes you sound like an idiot.
I've been to the 3rd world, specifically Africa. Everyone has cellphones. EVERYONE.
People that don't have homes, cars, a bed... have a cellphone.
Why? So they can keep in contact with their family, in case of emergency. Most people have 2 phones, or at least 2 sim cards so they can be on 2 networks at once, just so they don't miss a call.
You find booths like this on every street corner:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
I had better cell coverage there than I do in the states.