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New Dell Tech Support Scams Have Customers Worried Company Was Hacked (onthewire.io)
Trailrunner7 writes: A new twist on the fake tech support scam has arisen that has victims wondering whether Dell has been hacked.There has been a recent rash of calls to Dell customers in which the caller says he is from Dell itself and is able to identify the victim's PC by model number and provide details of previous warranty and support interactions with the company.
These are details that, it would seem, only Dell or perhaps its contractors would know. One person who was contacted by the scammers wrote a detailed description of the call, and said the caller had personal details that could not have been found online. Dell officials say they're looking into it.
These are details that, it would seem, only Dell or perhaps its contractors would know. One person who was contacted by the scammers wrote a detailed description of the call, and said the caller had personal details that could not have been found online. Dell officials say they're looking into it.
Service Tags are rather short, if you brute force guessed existing service tags would it give enough personal info (first/last name) to then do a phone directory look-up to get enough info to know your number, name, service tag, etc...?
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Dude, I'm homeless now!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
More than a decade ago, I'd ordered my small business's desktops from Dell. Might have been a couple of times, actually.
A few years later, I was looking up drivers or somesuch, and noticed that oddly, the login screen for my Dell account had me misidentified as "Ben".
(My name is nothing like Ben.)
Then I saw a WAVE of spam, as well as dead-tree mail spam, all addressed to "dear Ben".
Dell INSISTS that they didn't sell my name to spammers.
Despite complaining to Dell, last time I checked it still calls me Ben, and I continue to get spam occasionally addressed to Ben.
Seems pretty clear to me.
-Styopa
Anyone notice that that the link is to a forum post from SIX MONTHS ago? And here's a post in Dell's forum about the problem in 2014 -- so, *18* months ago.
http://en.community.dell.com/s...
Is Dell unable to address this problem -- so they're just hoping it goes away?
When I worked at Google in 2008, it wasn't unusual to see a field tech carting multiple laptops on a bicycle.
You can get a great deal of information from the "service tag" on your Dell equipment. Every piece of Dell equipment has one, and you can get the entire service history through the Dell website. This is very useful for service types, both inside and outside Dell. But it sounds like some people are abusing that, and I fear that will cause Dell to shut down or limit access to that service. :-(
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
It's the same bloody call center they use for support in the first place.
If they have information that specific either Dell has been hacked, or these guys for the information directly from Dell for a supposedly legitimate purpose.
When will people get it through their heads: incoming phone calls are inherently not trustworthy because the lobbyists for telemarketing companies have ensured caller ID spoofing is legal.
If someone calls you claiming to be from an entity you have a relationship with, tell them you'll only talk to them if you can call them on a number you can get from the official company web page.
I no longer give callers the benefit of being polite to them; I start out fairly hostile and either climb down or rapidly escalate from there. Because 90% or more of the incoming calls I've received in the last few years are fraudulent.
Between "the Microsoft support", or the "Air Duct cleaning" assholes, or that twat from cardholder services who wants to get me a lower rate ... it's all lies.
Best thing I ever did was get a Panasonic cordless phone which will drop all calls from "Unknown", "Unavailable", and "Private Caller". And for the rest, well, caller ID is a lie anyway, so I don't trust that.
Hell, a few times I've phoned myself to try to scam myself.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
He has an Indian accent, his name is "Bob", he's far more courteous than any other support rep you've worked with, and his solution to every problem you throw at him is to perform a complete reinstall of your Windows installation.
Funny, I've met IT staff like that. Only they weren't courteous.
I've also had the misfortune of dealing with outsourced IBM helpdesk people. They too seem to have no troubleshooting skills and suggest a complete reinstall.
Your joke would be much funnier if there weren't already massive amounts of people whose suggestion for most problems is a complete reinstall.
Rebooting and then reinstalling seems to be the standard Windows troubleshooting sequence, unfortunately.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'm willing to bet one of their warranty providers has been compromised. I know they farm out a lot of stuff to the likes of Unisys (and that's the better ProSupport) and likely less reputable companies. It wouldn't surprise me if Warranties-4-Less out of India/Mexico had a breach.
Please do the needful.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I doubt their means to travel tell you how qualified or shady they are.
The second link to the forum is a post from July.... was this just noticed now?
Posted by billroberts10 on 14 Jul 2015 4:11 PM
Anyway, the advice I always give my friends and family is to never accept anything offered to you. If you get a call and it seems legit, get a phone number and tell them you will call them back, then try to look up that number.
If a pop-up comes up asking you to download anything, hit Alt+F4
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Having said that, Dell might be hacked too. Who knows.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This was in Georgia, and the vast majority of people I know with a moped have once since they don't require a driver's license. You don't see them often around here otherwise because it's usually either too hot or too cold here to be comfortable. Also, this guy was wearing no helmet and no shirt. He was wearing only a blue jean vest. He looked and sounded like a tweaker. The receptionist wouldn't even let him in the door until security came to escort him. Dell does hire shady people.
I don't even know what's the point of trying to "fix" malware. You can't win that battle, and the tools available for it - paid or not - are woefully insufficient. There's no way to "repair" a system install that is owned. No way period.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
That's fine for corporations but for home users or single machines, if you don't have a suitable disc image, look forward to spending 3 days reinstalling 300 Windows updates and all the applications, then configuring them and restoring the data. If you don't have recovery media, you can play hunt the driver too.
I asked if dell made a mfc scan/print/fax that could print on discs.
Afaik dell doesn't sell printers. Or atleast dells sales depot couldn't find one.
I also asked Canon, Epson & Brother who
quickly replied with a list of models.
I even got a message back from kodak that they no longer made consumer inkjet printers.
But dell emailed back that I had to call and talk to a Indian that could barely speak english....I gave up after 10 minutes trying to explain I wanted a printer not a CD burner.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
The repair guys I've come across from Dell have mostly been okay. The people on the phone are mostly terrible, and probably get paid little enough that a little data-mining will earn them a LOT more than their salary.
Although the scammers steal credit cards and drain bank accounts, Dell customers still reported the experience as "an improvement" over previous interactions with Dell technical support.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Don't hold the fact that he's a hipster against him!
Thirty four characters live here.
Dude you getting a cell unless you can pay off the local cop in el salvador
They don't cover the cost of tape, paper, and ink.
We didn't have any hipsters in 2008. They came later.
I never lived in San Francisco. All the hipsters I know today are from San Francisco.