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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?
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
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.
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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
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.
I get these calls all the time at work. I try to play along as long as possible. Sometimes I gush at them.
"I know right?, It's those damn kids and the all the porno... you can help me right? my computer says something about TOR and paying in bitcoin? Whats a TOR?"
"Sure! I'm so glad you called back! my computer says no boot device?"
"Bob! I've been trying to call you guys back! my case number is 34643245, I made my payment, but my computer is still broken, do I need to pay more?"
"I'm not sure, this is the accountants computer, can you still help me?"
"I pressed the start button and the screen went black....now there's a penguin in the corner....lots of white words? Says kernel panic? Who's Colonel Panic?"
"my screen says The quieter you are, the more you are able to hear"
"I don't have a desktop buddy, this here's a LAPTOP!"
I get a kick out of it, all those soul crushing years of call center tech support work come bubbling to the surface. "Where's your empathy statement buddy?"
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
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
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.
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.)
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.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
(Note: What this guy is doing is probably illegal, although I wouldn't convict him in court)
-=Lothsahn=-
You wasted 30 minutes of your life on this? Let's never mind the fact that it's your *life* you wasted and look at from an economic standpoint. You make how much per hour? Indian in call center makes how much per hour? I don't see how you are winning.
I'm guessing he counted that in his "entertainment" time allotment.
In any case, I'd prefer to call this a "public service" rather than a "waste of time". Those 45 minutes he forced them to spend was 45 minutes they could NOT spend scamming some other poor soul who might be genuinely bamboozled by these scum.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I held them captive for over an hour. I'm retired and have time for a little fun. The first time they called I told them I didn't have a "windows" key and I had a Linux computer that I built myself. That did not deter them. Finally I convinced them that what they wanted to do wouldn't work and they hung up. About a month later they called again and this time I decided to play along more -- I played stupid making them instruct me in almost everything. Finally that resulted in them asking me to download what turned out to be some remote monitoring/control software to turn over my desktop them. Except I did that in a Virtual Box which was running Windows 7 just for this purpose.
Eventually they got control of the desktop in the virtual machine, and I watched as they started to download other stuff to it. While they were trying to do this, I'd pause the virtual machine. After about a minute they'd ask if my machine was still working. I'd unfreeze it and move the mouse around and say "Yeah, it seems to be. But you said that my machine had a bad virus which made it run slow, so maybe that's what's going on." They'd move the mouse around some to see if it was still working and when they seemed content and start to move to open some webpage to download I'd pause it again. Hilarity ensued. They eventually called in their *high tech* guy who I'd play with as well, start cusing in Hindi to each other, and finally tell me that we had to start all over -- I'd reboot the virtual machine, making both of them wait. When it came back they'd have me download their remote desktop software again, and we'd start all over. Once again, I'd pause the virtual machine at just the right times, and I'll tell them I was hoping that they could fix my computer. Id be like, "Really guys, we have to fix my computer, it just freezes half the time, I'm sure it's the virus that you detected."
I gave up when the battery in my phone died. I figured over an hour with me kept them from possibly infecting some elderly person's machine. Unfortunately, they haven't called me in months, so I'm pretty sure I'm off the list that they use.