Microsoft Certified Technician telemarketing scam

[chayton]

I've been getting a lot of these calls lately. For those of you who haven't had the privilege, it's a total scam, someone (usually with an Indian accent) calls claiming to be from Microsoft and trying to get either a credit card number or get you to download some malware. I get at least 3 of these every week.

The last one went something like this:

Ring Ring

Me: Yeah?
Scammer: bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Me: WHAT?
Scammer: Click...Hello ma'am, how are you today?
Me: None of your business. What do you want?
Scammer: The reason I'm calling ma'am is that I'm a Microsoft Certified technician and we've been getting reports from your computer that you're completely infected with viruses and....
Me: Is that so?
Scammer: Yes if you'll just...
Me: You said I'm infected?
Scammer: Yes ma'am, if you'll just....
Me: You mean my computer?
Scammer: Yes ma'am, your computer has so many viruses and they're stealing credit card informations and your personal photos and....
Me: Oh no, not my photos! Please help me.
Scammer: Uhh...well ma'am we have several options, if you....
Me: Several options, wow.
Scammer: uhhh ok, yes we have several options, you can turn off any virus protection and firewall you have installed on your computer and go to the link I'll give you over the phone and you can download this program that will clean up any of these nasty viruses.
Me: uh huh...
Scammer: Or you can purchase the pro version for only 5 cents and we'll send you a CD and a free trip to Hawaii!
Me: Oh wow, really!!! That's so freaking awesome I'm all goosepimples!
Scammer: Yes it's...
Me: I think I wet myself a little.
Scammer: uh...(subdued snicker) yes well it's a great deal, all we need is your credit card number.
Me: I see, well let me run and get my wallet but first, tell me one thing....
Scammer: Yes ma'am?
Me: How can you get virus reports from my computer when I don't have a ****ing computer you lying sack of ****?

Click

Some days it's fun to mess with them, but these scumbags are starting to really piss me off. I was thinking, you know those superloud, earsplitting boat horns? I should get one and the next time these jokers call I could play along and pretend I'm falling for it. I'd speak really softly so they'll have to really listen, and at the end when I start giving a fake credit card number I'd do it very faintly so they're really listening hard, then give them a blast from the horn!

 

[LaHutti]

LOL!!!!
Please let us know how that goes.

 

[same_old]

So it's not just Australia getting these Microsoft calls.

They are really persistent arent they.

The one I got the other day was from a lady and as soon as I answered she has gone, Sir- please go straight to your computer now and go to "remote assistance" so we can remove the Viruses you have on your system. I did the same thing and went along for a few minutes.

I ended up just saying I think it is disgusting what they are doing and I wish them a thousand STD'S.

 

[Perc]

I got pretty much the same call, but they started with saying my computer was "malfunctioning". I told them I know how computers work and let them know how disgusting it was that they would take advantage of people that don't know better, and that they should really get a real job rather than steal from those that do. I kept going but they hung up before I could finish my next point.

 

[chayton]

No, it's an international problem I guess, at least in English speaking countries. It actually seems to have been going on longer in other places than it has in Canada, I've only been receiving these calls for maybe 3 months or so. But when they discovered Canada they must have done a flood of calls, soon after I'd gotten the first two calls they did a segment on the news warning people about the scam.

On a related note, I'm also getting a lot of those automated recorded spam calls. Those really bug me because there's nobody to tell off! So I was looking online and read an article that said that you could record the tone of a disconnected number at the beginning of your answering machine message and it would trick the robot into thinking it was no longer a good number so you'd be removed from future calls. I wonder if that would really work?

 

[vinylweatherman]

I had a pair of such calls a short while ago. It seems to be an escalation of the email phishing scam where you are "officially notified by Microsoft" that you need to install some "latest update".

Since Microsoft do NOT deal direct with customer this way, it is obviously a scam for many, but naive users are easily tricked because they don't know of this policy, and believe Microsoft really DO act on all the error reports their PC "sends back to Microsoft" when Windows crashes.

I filled in a report form for Trading Standards, so they are now aware of this recent escalation from email phishing to phone phishing. The number seems to trace back to Birmingham, not India, despite the accent, and there are internet reports that this IS locally generated from a rogue computer maintenance company based in Birmingham. I am sure the workers know full well that what they do for a living is fraud, which is why they are quick to hang up if there is even a hint that they have called someone who knows they are being scammed. Lack of action by the authorities is one reason these scams continue, since if I have provided the phone number, it should be easy for the authorities to use their powers to reverse lookup the address, and raid the premises. This does not seem to be happening, so the scam is relatively low risk even when conducted from the UK.

Many such scams affecting the UK come from the US, which is a relative safe haven for them since they make sure NOT to scam US citizens and thus draw the US authorities into investigating them. The "boiler room" scam often comes from the US, but targets Europe.

 

[chayton]

I was curious whether anyone ever fell for this scam or not and just found something on the MS News site, they did a survey in June, here's an excerpt from

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:

Microsoft surveyed 7,000 computer users in the U.K., Ireland, U.S. and Canada. The survey showed that across all four countries, 15 percent of people had received a call from scammers. In Ireland this rose to 26 percent.

Of those who received a call, 22 percent, or 3 percent of the total survey sample, were deceived into following the scammers’ instructions, which ranged from permitting remote access to their computer and downloading software code provided by the criminals to providing credit card information and making a purchase.

The vast majority (79 percent) of people deceived in this way suffered some sort of financial loss. Seventeen percent said they had money taken from their accounts, 19 percent reported compromised passwords and 17 percent were victims of identity fraud. More than half (53 percent) said they suffered subsequent computer problems.

Across all four countries surveyed, the average amount of money stolen was $875 (U.S.), ranging from $82 (U.S.) in Ireland up to $1,560 (U.S.) in Canada. The average cost of repairing damage caused to computers by the scammers was $1,730 — rising to $4,800 in the U.S.

Weird they didn't include Australia in the survey as well, although they did mention that so far the scammers have been targeting English speaking countries. Anyhow it seems amazing to me that 22% of the people who had received one of the calls fell for the scam I'd have thought it would be much less than that. Mind you, this was in June, and there have been a lot of warnings about it on news programs and web sites, so hopefully that percentage has dropped dramatically.

 

[same_old]

Where is Gilgor Trout when you need him.

 

[dwype]

thanks for the info.

this stuff isn't so scary for us tech savy folk, but i shudder to think of all the people i know who would fall for this stuff, like my mom and grandma who don't know much about computers.