Finally got a "PC support" scam call this morning

[bcla]

Saw a call that caller ID identified as +0000000 coming from "United States" on my cell phone. Against my better judgement I picked it up and it was "Alex" although he had a thick South Asian accent. Claimed that my computer had sent a message about several errors.

I know better than to actually do anything, but I just played along a little. He told me to look for something on the corner of my keyboard and I guess he wanted me to enter something to give him remote access via the internet. Only I use a Mac, so that threw him for a loop and I just hung up.

 

[cobright]

Some great videos on youtube of people trolling this guys. Even reversing the hack and exploring or destroying the scammers computer.

 

[DVC-Don]

I have a brother in law that fell for this. Totally wrecked his computer. Brother in law is one of those guys, "if it's on the internet, it must be true".

 

[bcla]

I have a brother in law that fell for this. Totally wrecked his computer. Brother in law is one of those guys, "if it's on the internet, it must be true".

The one I’ve seen is from someone who set up a “virtual computer” and gave access knowing he had nothing he couldn’t recover. When it was clear that he wasn’t paying them for the “service” they vandalized his setup and left him a nasty message via a chat box before disabling his Ethernet card. During this time they stayed on the phone with him.

I don’t get why they do that rather than just move on to the next potential victim.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Welcome to the club.
You are now officially a member of the in crowd, .

Haven't been told I have issues w/ my 'puter for a while as I've been consumed with laughter over the calls that either the "cops" are looking for me or the IRS.
I wonder how many phone numbers my cell phone can block before it explodes?

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

I kept one on the phone for 30-40 minutes once. I kept up an act that the computer was really old, I had to turn it on which took forever, it wasn't connected to the internet, the dialup was slow, etc. I can't remember if they gave up or if I finally got bored and hung up.

 

[manning]

So everyone knows DELL NEVER CALLS YOU. They changed their policy sometime back due to scams. You have to call them.

 

[sam_gordon]

So everyone knows DELL NEVER CALLS YOU. They changed their policy sometime back due to scams. You have to call them.

Never gotten a call from Dell. I've gotten a bunch from Microsoft though. Isn't nice that they've programmed your PC so they can track you down if you start sending out malicious code?

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Your computer has virus. Just enter bank account number and password "65,000 rubles" at Putinrules dot com and we clean out bank account, err um computer.

 

[cabanafrau]

I'm living on the edge. Been getting repeated calls for I don't even know how long about my expired Microsoft key.

My husband intercepted one of the calls a while back and frustrated the daylights out of the caller to the point they began swearing and hung up on him. He was disappointed he didn't have his computer booted up at the time so he could take a run at reverse hacking them, so he settled for wasting as much of their time as he could.

 

[bcla]

Well - my dad doesn't necessarily understand all about computers. It wasn't one of these technical support cold calls. His BS meter for that sort of thing is strong, but his discipline in avoiding clicking on stuff or loading unnecessary stuff on his computer is fairly low.

Once he called me because he'd managed to load some sort of malware that was telling him that he needed to pay up or else it wouldn't go away. He was seriously thinking of paying it.

 

[I loveStitchnippyjon]

The calls I keep getting are from "Windows". I once got the guy really frustrated (he yelled at me!) by going on and on about how glad I was that he called because I needed new windows so much, mine were drafty, etc. I even asked for a quote for vinyl vs wood! Now I just say I don't have a computer and hang up.

 

[cabanafrau]

Well - my dad doesn't necessarily understand all about computers. It wasn't one of these technical support cold calls. His BS meter for that sort of thing is strong, but his discipline in avoiding clicking on stuff or loading unnecessary stuff on his computer is fairly low.

Once he called me because he'd managed to load some sort of malware that was telling him that he needed to pay up or else it wouldn't go away. He was seriously thinking of paying it.

It's been many years now, but it was before this type of scam was widely known that a friend of ours was talking to my husband about how his niece or nephew had been hacked this way, paid the "ransom" and had the virus reversed. My husband told him that it was likely the computer was usable, but was also still able to be controlled by the hackers as well. Our friend ended up bringing the machine to my husband and he was able to find a backdoor that was enabled on the machine. I know whatever my husband did to disable the access point involved rebuilding of some type, but the particulars are way above my paygrade and too long ago.