'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.

Comments

Re:Of course the callers were aware

[mbadolato]

Oh ok is that why when I'd mess around with them pretending I was looking at my computer they would immediately call me a motherfucker that was wasting their time and hang up?

Re:Fun Game

[slide-rule]

My favorite encounter (on behalf of the M.I.L. whose phone they called) was about 45 minutes. The pattern from previous calls is they want you to type "(win)+R" to then launch event viewer, because OMG all the errors they'll show you.

So I stymied them for over five minutes when I explained my keyboard didn't have that little windows key on it.
Oh, yes, I know what it looks like, my neighbor's PC has one, but I don't.

Then after some mention of "this thing is awfully slow, I'll have to restart it" (setting the phone down) was more minutes of his life gone. Then accidentally hung up half way through a sentence. They actually called back. Then allegedly the kid was having a meltdown, very sorry sir I have to check, but I'll be right back, and I do want these problems taken care of. Et cetera.

The jig was up after I "tried" to download their remote control software, but my (IE, allegedly) said site could not be found. (I was instead googling the error message to simulate a 'dialup modem not connected' scenario that they'd have to walk me through. You know, stay a step ahead.)

Finally Dave's "manager" cursed at me and said that I had ample time to get this to work and that I was wasting their time. A realization that was honestly 30 minutes too late. (Oh, no calls since.)

Re:They know what they are doing is wrong...

[Dan Ost]

"Hold on while I boot my computer. I'm glad you called because it's been slow lately."

Then I mute my phone, set it down, and continue on with my day. Eventually they hang up.