Coincidence or Advanced Scam?

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Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 4:35 am

Hey Fellow 419eaters,

I have taken a hiatus from baiting and haven't been around much lately. Just been too busy with life. Anyway, I have an interesting story and wanted to hear opinions from the veterans.

I have a PC Laptop that's 3 years old and been slightly on the fritz for a while, but was hanging in there. A couple days ago it just randomly shut down on it's own. When I rebooted it, it started up fine but wouldn't let me open any programs. I tried everything under the sun to fix it. (System restore, booting in safe mode, etc.) Nothing worked. Eventually I tried to restore to factory state, and all that did was destroy my dying computer for good. Now it won't even start up. It just gives me an error message saying Windows failed to start. No big deal, the computer was falling apart anyway, time to start searching for a new laptop. Now comes the interesting part.

Today, my parents (who I am currently staying with briefly) received a phone call on their land line. My Mom answered and passed the phone to me. It was someone asking if we had a Windows machine at our home, and that they had information that my computer had been taken by hackers and that he could help me fix it. As I talked to him I knew it was fishy from the get-go. It was a fuzzy phone connection, plus strange accent that sounded to me like many of our African scammer friends (although it could possibly have been Indian, hard to tell with the bad connection). He said something along the lines of, "I assume you are in front of your computer, I can walk you through how to fix the problem."

At this point, I knew it was a scammer and hung up on him. In hindsight, I wish I had strung him along longer to see where he was going with it. My question is, do you think it was a random coincidence, or did it have something to do with my computer issues? Keep in mind I don't usually live with my parents (their phone was called), although their number may have been stored somewhere on my computer.

Notes:
1) I never contacted anyone about my computer problems, so nobody should have been calling me about them.
2) I've always baited safe, never gave a phone number.
3) I haven't been baiting for probably a year.

Very interested to hear your thoughts.

*** BANNED *** Joined: 26 Jul 2012 Posts: 1123

Sorry I am not a veteran but I remember hearing about this a while back....

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/phone-scammers-target-pc-users-with-phony-virus-reports/4198

As far as viruses that can corrupt an OS install: I have seen them for windows. I know the Zeus and SpyEye variant can do this and I do wonder if scammers have combined malware with this type of fraud.

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 9:30 am

Bait It Up wrote:

My question is, do you think it was a random coincidence, or did it have something to do with my computer issues?

It's a random call and has nothing to do with your laptop issues. These scammers have been operating for sometime now and they target people in a massive scale..
I bet if you told them that you use Linux, they wouldn't have a clue.

Youtube is full of these cold calls. Check this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSFRtPus3DQ

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 1:31 pm

Dharma wrote:

I bet if you told them that you use Linux, they wouldn't have a clue.

If I got one of these calls and had time to bait it, I'd not mention Linux, but answer like: "The start button? Where's that? There's a button on the lower left that has a K on a gear, is that what you mean?"

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 2:22 pm

I had a call like that just today, but not from the usually sub-continent source; the accent sounded distinctly Ladian to me. The caller gave up early before s/he could do anything.

419Eater is my life Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 441

Too bad, I would have liked to read what Cammy or Mal had to say about it.

Master Baiter Joined: 20 Nov 2009 Posts: 114

My bet is coincidence.

I've gotten a few of these calls too, from a male with an Indian accent, claiming to be from Microsoft Windows Customer Support.

As if.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

This is a very widespread scam, with Indian callers trying to get access to your computer with a program called "AMMYY".

People are having fun with these scammers, just as posters here do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hsEHRIMeZo&noredirect=1

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 8:10 pm

I love it when these guys try to pretend they are American. I got a similar call some time back from a guy with a VERY heavy Indian accent who stated his name as "Brian Wilson". Rolling Eyes

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 8:39 pm

^^ A couple years ago I read an article where they talk about these foreign call centers employees using Anglicized names as they think we will be more accepting of the calls!

Oh, really! When your accent is so thick I cannot understand what you are saying you want me to believe you are "Jennifer" or "Tom"

Recently we had so much trouble with understanding one of these call center people we had to speak to that I kept asking for someone who spoke English without an Indian accent, and was passed up to a supervisor with same said accent.....I kept asking until they must have transferred me back to an American call center who I spoke to someone I could understand.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

Yeah, I'm just watching one now on YT who says his name is Kevin Watson. Laughing

Well, at least they're better at using Western names than the lads are.

Master Baiter Joined: 20 Nov 2009 Posts: 114

Phone scams in general seem to be making a comeback.

The latest I had the honour to spend an hour on the phone with (on their dime) was the free cruise scam. (You only have to pay the port fees today.)

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

If one of these "Windows" scammers in India calls someone in Canada and that person keeps Brian Wilson or Kevin Watson on the phone for an hour, what is the cost to the scammer?

Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2012 1:41 pm

^Probably not a huge amount in this day and age. Some of these outfits are huge with resources stretching around the globe. I chased one particular company from India, Poland, most of Eastern Europe and the United States although the call actually originated from Toronto, Ontario (Trust me on the originating call as I do that sort of stuff to keep beer in the fridge).

Mind you,if you can keep them on the line for an hour more the power to you. At least they aren't scamming someone else. My record was twenty minutes with them.

Master Baiter Joined: 03 May 2011 Posts: 237

Typical Indian 'Microsoft technician' cold-caller. Instantly suspicious that he has to ask if you have a Windows machine, but at the same time knows there's malware on it.

It plays upon the presumed naivety of a person, yet the con is laughable to a computer-savvy person. A lot of technical-sounding, made-up computer jargon with the intent to bamboozle the potential victim and assert the authority of the scammer. It is in many respects similar to 419, especially since there's an advance-fee variant of it whereas the victim has to pay money for practically nonexistant software to remove the supposed infections on their computer. There are other variants, including one where the scammer remotely controls the PC and effectively holds it to ransom.

Like the video posted indicates, only LEAs or your ISP would bring something you've downloaded to your attention. Microsoft, and as far as I'm aware no other company, never cold call people.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

Quote:

victim has to pay money for practically nonexistant software to remove the supposed infections on their computer.

Yes. They get victims to open their "Event viewer" to prove how many errors and malicious files are on their computers. Rolling Eyes

Master Baiter Joined: 03 May 2011 Posts: 237

I suppose the red crosses and yellow caution symbols are meant to be intimidating, when in fact they're simply a log of error and warning messages that have popped up during the normal course of running Windows.

Granted, the tech support scammers are more computer savvy than the majority of lads, but even so once you know the workings of the scam, you've pretty much exhausted their repertoire until they can think of something else.

Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2012 5:00 pm

I had occasion to fix a customer computer, and he had allowed the caller remote access..

What a fool.. He is one of the scum of the earth, would cheat seniors and steal candy from babies, yet he fell for the scam..

After he paid his bill, I yelled at him..

Perhaps he'll not return.. Rolling Eyes

Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:08 pm

I get them all the time, probably because my phone number is on my work website. I either play along dumb if I've time, or make it clear I know all about it -' You're going to send me to the Prefetch file again?' then hang up.

Once I asked them to 'wait while I booted the PC up' and left them listening to a noisy Japanese pr0n film soundtrack. I wonder if they put it on the call cantre speakers....

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