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'Microsoft' Scam Callers Arrested After Years of Terrorising the Technically Challenged (gizmodo.co.uk)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Those shameless scammers that cold-call people pretending to be from Microsoft and demanding money after walking users through supposed problems with their computers? They're going down, it seems, with four people arrested in the UK for enabling the rip-off. City of London Police and Microsoft, the real Microsoft, have been working together for two years to trace the operators of the scheme, with the four people -- two from Woking and two from South Shields -- arrested on suspicion of fraud. Although the calls were found to originate from India, the investigators found that the scam was allegedly being run out of the UK, with the poor overseas callers working from scripts and, presumably, not really aware they're doing anything hugely wrong.
Queue the
"There's hundreds more working in Redmond"
comments.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
They'll lie their asses off when they call. Of course the poor overseas callers were fully aware it was a scam.
How the hell does this kind of thing take years to track down?
In a few years, there will be a major motion picture about these jerks, like they're Robin Hood or something.
Finding God in a Dog
Very unfortunate term and I it sounds like something that cannot be cured with a telethon to help those afflicted with it.
The obvious joke here is that if you're using Windows, you're clearly "Technically Challenged" but I think it goes further than that and parodies legitimate physical and cognitive handicaps (both of which are PC'd down to "challenges").
Probably a better and more accurate term would be "not technically proficient".
Bash away.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Despite not residing in India, the perps are of Indian origin.
Everyone I know who has gotten a call from those sleaze bags were over 70 AND members of AARP.
What I would like to know is if those fuckers were buying aarp's list, filtering out everyone under 70 (you only have to be 50 to join) and then cold calling them.
That's what I'd do if I wanted to target old people.
I received one of these calls, and played along just to see how long I could keep them on the phone.
I blew it when I mentioned "Linux". He swore in Hindi then hung up on me.
I wish they could find Heather with credit card services!
I got a phone call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft and that my computer had a virus. Which was... interesting to say the least. Considering that I never gave Microsoft my phone number in the first place. The guy on the phone line had the most ridiculous accent.
The first few times I tried talking to them, then I tried calling them liars.
But I found the best way to deal with them was to just say nothing and mute the phone; it wastes their time, but not mine.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
After getting between 3 and 5 calls a day, at all kinds of hours.
When I made the mistake of answering the phone, every single caller knew exactly what they were doing. Preying on the elderly and vulnerable. The article seems to hold the callers as blameless. They aren't.
Part of the problem we seem to have is that absolutely nothing is done about the numerous types of scams that are computer/Internet related. Even the FBI, which was the agency that was supposed to investigate many of these schemes in the US when the phenomena first started, doesn't even want to follow up on any of it because it's always considered too hard to actually trace or obtain an arrest/conviction. As more and more of them are actually caught, charged and punished (that last part is really important), it's always going to be considered easy money with zero ramifications whatsoever.
Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog
Seriously celebrating a victory over 4 scammers when there are thousands of criminals doing this every day? It took all these years to charge 4 of them? There are going to be some out of work tech nerds queuing to fill those spots.
First, I find it hard to believe that there's only one group of scammers running th Microsoft Support con. Second, TFS says "the poor overseas callers working from scripts and, presumably, not really aware they're doing anything hugely wrong". From my many experiences with these callers, I would say that they're VERY aware that they're at least pretty far over on the shady side of the street. Some of them I wouldn't want to meet unless I was armed, judging by the things they said after I strung them along for a few minutes by describing what I was seeing on my Xubuntu machine... :)
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
There's lots of games you can play with them while you have them on the phone.
One of my favorite is to pretend you have vocalized Tourettes. Honestly claim to have no knowledge of what weird noises or obscenities you're spouting off.
If they start getting angry point out how cruel it is to make fun of the handicapped. ... irony ...
Have they been lit on fire yet?
See subject: "Miraculously" these fools called me saying "your system is infected" - Oh REALLY? LMAO - incredible - how'd you determine THAT when my system's been down??
* UNBELIEVABLE...
APK
P.S.=> I am glad to hear these fucks took a beating - after all, they're doing it 1st - I do admit I'll miss screwing w/ them though (I have fun doing it just to waste their time (they 'smarten up' after about 10 minutes of me playing games w/ their utter bullshit & hang up on me - what REALLY does the job fast? Telling them I'm an "NSA employee" etc. & they hang up instantly - lol!))... apk
I'm kind of surprised Ballmer didn't just hire a hitman. Seems more his style.
The business model has proven itself lucrative. Do you really think they're the only scammers in this global town? The shakedowns aren't limited to windows users; they use IRS and tax collection scams most often, but any possible billing is fair game to scammers. They prey on old people, immigrants, and minorities just because they are more vulnerable.
At least two other "organizations" are already running this fake microsoft scam. It's just another revenue stream to them.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
Zat is because he is French, you silly English K-niggit!!!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Hello; this is Rachel at Tax Services. We understand that you got a free upgrade to Windows 10. Because it was free, there is a gift tax payment outstanding. Either you or your attorney must call us immediately at 1-800-xxx-xxxx to settle this outstanding bill or else you will face immediate arrest. We only accept payment in Itunes cards.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
If you scold them and tell them that they should be ashamed of themselves for trying to rip people off, they hang up. I suppose I could play dumb and waste their time, but I would be wasting my own time at the same time.
I call for appropriate and commiserate punishment. Get a rope.
There is a reason the FBI doesn't spend a lot of time on these, according to an article I read MS spent $2million tracking these 4 down. That's a lot of cash for a financial crime that's a few bucks at a time. Particularly considering the FBI tries to avoid low dollar crime (I've heard they won't even talk to you if it's no $5k or more) because it wastes their resources where they can be better spent.
The Linux community breathes a collective sigh of relief.
Special place in hell for these scammers
There is a fairly easy way to stop all kinds of scams like this.
Issue "Fraud cards" to LEO.
What, might you ask, is a fraud card? It's a special card that will stop a merchant account. Shut it down. Scammer calls a undercover LEO or their call is forwarded to them, LEO gives them the number, and as soon as it hits the card processor, it locks the merchant account and triggers a fraud investigation into that merchant account.
Full stop.
As for checking, that would be a tiny bit harder but not insurmountably so. Bit coin I doubt much could be done about it since the point of crypto currency is to avoid LE as much as possible.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
"...not really aware they're doing anything hugely wrong."
Bullshit, I took the time to explain how it was a scam to every semi-English literate who called me. I had a couple of them actually connect the dots and take genuine concern.
Funny how these guys somehow know there's a virus on my computer that's been identified through its "unique ID", yet they can never tell me which of my dozen or so computers they're talking about when I ask.
That *always* throws them off-script and they're the ones who end up hanging up despite me remaining calm, polite and friendly throughout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
(Note: What this guy is doing is probably illegal, although I wouldn't convict him in court)
-=Lothsahn=-
I inform them they are criminals every time they call. The know they are criminals; they just don't care enough to stop.
Not 2 hours after reading this, I just got another call from these scammers.
my Wife answered and I was not at home. She knows better than to do anything on the computer without me so she luckily didn't follow their command. However, when I got home she rode my a$$ all night long to "fix" her computer because she believed them that there was something wrong. She didn't believe me until I showed here many posts on the internet about these trolls and even then she wanted me to check out here computer and make sure everything was ok.... gees
Karma: Bad
Let's talk about a punishment fitting for the perpetrators. I'd like to see something involving chainsaws and great white sharks. And I'm not talking about "Sharknado VII: Mutant Ax Men Sharks".
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
are well aware what they are taking part in, stop lying about this.
"Queue" because the joke is so obvious that people are lining up to tell it.
"Tech Scammer sets Syskey and BIOS Password on his OWN COMPUTER and CRIES!" by Zephyr Audio
"TECH SUPPORT SCAMMER LOGS ME INTO HIS BANK ACCOUNT" by Each&Everything
The obvious joke here is that if you're using Windows, you're clearly "Technically Challenged"
Here's a technical challenge for you: People who want a 11.6" laptop are faced with a choice between laptops warranted only to run Windows and laptops locked down to erase themselves if they're running any application other than Google Chrome. How would you solve this challenge?
Windows users do not use Bash.
This is true of Windows 10 S, not Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro. These operating systems can run Bash as part of Windows Subsystem for Linux. Think of WSL as Microsoft GNU/Windows.
I'm surprised they are stupid enough to run it from the UK. There will be plenty of financial and electronic paper trails for the authorities to follow, you can't buy your way out of jail and any money you do make thats kept in the UK as Assets etc will be confiscated also : not to mention getting banged up in jail.
Surely if you are going to run this kind of con you should do it from a country that has a more "flexible" attitude i.e. corrupt.
Arrests do take a long time in this scenario as the coppers want to be sure they have a good case with plenty of evidence to take to court. The Crown Prosecution Service will have been involved as well to make sure it's watertight.
Companies like Microsoft should divert some of their advertising spend, perhaps in partnership with the FBI, to remind people that nobody from Microsoft will ever make an unsolicited call to a customer. The IRS has gone to some effort for years now, posting on their website, getting the word out to reporters and bloggers and printing in their publications to remind taxpayers that the IRS will never ever demand payment over the phone, nor ask to be paid in iTunes cards, money transfer or pre-paid debit cards. A bit of money spent educating customers to spot scams by making iron clad rules, such as no unsolicited calls or demands for payment in pre-paid cards or money transfers, and adhering to them will go a long way towards making these scams less viable because everyone will know, based upon the rules, that the callers must be false.
then we will have some semblance of justice (oh, not only the two top executive tiers: the main shareholders too, please -- and as to their money... well, proceed as with Kim Dotcom).
queue
n noun
1 chiefly British a line or sequence of people or vehicles awaiting their turn to be attended to or to proceed. ØComputing a list of data items, commands, etc., stored so as to be retrievable in a definite order.
2 archaic a plait of hair worn at the back of the head.
n verb (queues, queuing or queueing, queued) chiefly British wait in a queue. ØComputing arrange in a queue.
ORIGIN
C16 (as a heraldic term denoting an animal's tail): from French, based on Latin cauda 'tail'; cf. cue2.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
I'll miss those guys. Their offered some free laughs during a dreary workday.
I put them on speaker phone for everyone, laughing in the background while we continued working.
But it wasn't as funny when I was busy at home, running for the phone.
not really aware they're doing anything hugely wrong.
Let me translate that. It means: "They knew fully well what they were doing, but we don't want to bother to find some people in India."
I lolled:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWrkDOt_IfM
They called at 10 PM. I don't remember why I answered the phone at that ungodly hour. Someone mumbled something I didn't understand because of his accent. I mumbled something back that he probably didn't understand since I wasn't really awake, then I hung up. The next morning I woke up and realized that that was the Microsoft scam I'd heard about.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I enjoy the calls from Windows Technical Support. I treat them like a game - how long can I keep these people on the phone (often while I'm doing something else)? I can usually tie them up for about a half hour, but I'm not going to give them remote access to my computer, and there's only so long I can pretend to have trouble letting them in until they give up. I've always wondered what they would do if they actually could get in...
Then I remembered: Microsoft makes free images of Windows installations available! They're intended for testing Internet Explorer and Edge, but they are full versions of Windows. The only limitation is that they're not activated, so they will stop working 90 days after first use, but that's not a problem. So here's what to do:
1. Download and install VirtualBox, which is free. https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
2. Download one of the Microsoft VMs for VirtualBox. Pick whatever version of Windows you want. https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/
3. In VirtualBox, create a virtual machine with the VM that you downloaded. Make sure it's not configured to share files from your primary operating system. Before you boot it, make a snapshot of the VM.
4. Boot it up and make sure it works. You'll want to change the wallpaper so it's less suspicious (the default wallpaper has instructions about how to use the VM), and you may also want to remove the evaluation watermark that shows up in the bottom-right corner of the desktop (there are sites with instructions on how to do this).
Now you're all set! The next time a Windows Technical Support scammer calls you and wants you to install something on your computer to give him access, go for it! He can wreck your honeypot all he wants - install viruses to it, even encrypt the files. VirtualBox even has a video capture feature that can create a movie file of everything he does. He shouldn't be able to get out of the honeypot (unless you have fileservers with weak passwords on your home network, but that's assuming he even looks).
After he's done, or if your VM reaches 90 days old, just revert back to your snapshot to reset everything. Now you've got a clean VM and your 90 day timer is reset.
Have fun!
Apart from one small detail: nobody would actually say the second one, because it sounds wrong and is wrong.
Now "ask them to queue" or even "queue them up" are acceptable, but not what you wrote.
Your usage is an eggcorn.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The IRS has been saying for a long time that they'll mail something on paper to you if they have business with you, and people still fall for the scams. I don't think public education works here. It will get to the people who'd figure this out anyway, and not the the people who'd be scammed.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I'd start off telling them I stole the computer from a blue box and that it would shock me every time I tried to start it. I had sound effects and everything. Guess I'll give up on developing a new bit :(
When you're hammered everything looks like it needs nailed....
Bullshit. Go listen to any of the counless calls on YouTube. They know full well they're scamming people.
"not really aware they're doing anything hugely wrong."
Bull. They know exactly what they are doing. They are devoid of morals, and dirty thieves. They are uneducated, illiterate, thieving scum.
It's a bit hard to believe that the people in India "don't know they're doing anything wrong", given people who confront them on their scamminess often threaten them as soon as they're uncovered.