Almost fell for a scam

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
350
126
When I need a contact number to call, I often find a company makes it hard to find on their web site, but googling for it finds the number.

So I wanted to call Amazon Kindle support and googled for it, and saw a number listed in the results and called it.

A person answered, Kindle support, asked what was going on, and for details on my account like they usually do. Finally I said I wasn't calling to review my account info but about the Kindle question.

He said he'd have his 'advanced agent' call me back in a couple minutes - and he did, identifying himself as the Amazon agent. Oddly the caller id listed another company, 'Geeks something'.

He also asked what the issue was and then asked me to type in a web site, 'logmein123.com'

Hm, that's strange, but... hey, that sounds like a site to observe my PC/take remote control. Hm, let me check the number I called again... oh, the web site it's on is "kindlecustomersupport.com" or similar...

That's not Amazon. So I didn't continue and said I was going to check on something and disconnected the call, and called Amazon who confirmed that's not them.

So it looks like one of these phishing scam setups went to the trouble to set up a phony Amazon site and have their scammers impersonate Amazon people if someone calls their number. Yeesh.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
39,300
9,216
136
Watched the news yesterday. There was a story about a guy who was pitched that he'd won $75,000 in some country's lottery (I guess he bought a ticket for it), and that to get his money he had to pay a processing fee up front and he fell for it. I hit fast forward.

BTW, I have kindle support programmed into my phone: 1-877-453-4512
 

Ichinisan

Lifer
Oct 9, 2002
28,298
1,235
136
This has been common for years. I've talked to people who tried to call Dell / HP / etc and ended up calling some bogus number that appeared in Google Ads (above the actual search results). You would end up talking to someone that's doing something very similar to the cold call scam.
 

Nashemon

Senior member
Jun 14, 2012
889
86
91
My mom fell for the exact same thing about 3 years ago when she was trying to find the number for McAfee. Google Ad for a website GuruAid dot com posing as McAfee Support is the top (ad) result for "mcafee support number". They have a bunch of phishing websites for various software products. "norton support number" returns them as well. They actually got my mom to let them into the brand new computer I just built and shipped to her while charging her $200 in the process. I spent the next several days remotely cleaning it up to get it to working again and walking her through stopping the payment, reporting the fraud, and canceling the credit card she gave to them.

I've reported them several times to Google whenever I think to check to see if they've done anything about it, but they continue to show up in their ad rotation til this day. One of the reasons I've grown to despise Google.
 

Nashemon

Senior member
Jun 14, 2012
889
86
91
Strange... if you search for "amazon support number" with the quotes, it literally just gives you the correct number to Amazon support. No other results are given at all. I wonder how much Amazon paid for that. :rolleyes:
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
350
126
Strange... if you search for "amazon support number" with the quotes, it literally just gives you the correct number to Amazon support. No other results are given at all. I wonder how much Amazon paid for that. :rolleyes:

I tried to repeat the search I thought I did to respond to this, and this time the same entry didn't seem to show up but the second and third results were a site 'gethuman.com' that had two different numbers for them, don't know if they're legit or other scam numbers.

So I googled the number I'd called, and several results were returned - not only kindle support but several others - from quickbooks to web design to other types.

You'd think given their being tied to a phone number would make them much more susceptible to retaliation by law enforcement and others.
 

Nashemon

Senior member
Jun 14, 2012
889
86
91
Probably depends on whether they're actually breaking any laws.
I guess it depends on where you draw the line. Infecting a computer is criminal. But if the user gives you permission to do it...

There are plenty of red flags on their website that are there to skirt the laws, but if you call them, they can say whatever they want and are no different than the cold callers who claim to be Microsoft calling to inform you your PC is infected.

At the very least they are misrepresenting the "service" that they're providing. My mother asked for help installing a single piece of software (McAfee Antivirus). They charged her $200 (which is crazy to me, but in a capitalistic society is all fine and dandy), but instead of installing what she wanted, they installed various "registry cleaners" and bogus security utilities that crippled her computer.
 

Nashemon

Senior member
Jun 14, 2012
889
86
91
I tried to repeat the search I thought I did to respond to this, and this time the same entry didn't seem to show up but the second and third results were a site 'gethuman.com' that had two different numbers for them, don't know if they're legit or other scam numbers.

So I googled the number I'd called, and several results were returned - not only kindle support but several others - from quickbooks to web design to other types.

You'd think given their being tied to a phone number would make them much more susceptible to retaliation by law enforcement and others.
There's another site like that I used to recommend it all the time called contacthelp dot com, but I once saw the same number for GuruAid on one of the results, so I started to suspect foul play with the results and never recommended them again. All I can suggest now is for users to go to the actual business' website and look for a contact link directly. Don't trust Google's (or any search engine for that matter) page manipulation and nefarious ad placement.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
39,300
9,216
136
I still buy books. They never need to be recharged and never need tech support.
This, but in my case I borrow from the library. ;)

A few days ago I checked out an ebook at my local library, but it was ridiculously hard to gain access to it. While awaiting the library's tech support to roll around at noon, I got the idea to investigate the price for kindle access and it turned out to be $0.99. The library doesn't have a paper copy, so I paid for the 99 cents for the Kindle version at Amazon (Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World... very good read). There are times when the library is just too much trouble.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
39,300
9,216
136
All I can suggest now is for users to go to the actual business' website and look for a contact link directly. Don't trust Google's (or any search engine for that matter) page manipulation and nefarious ad placement.
I saw a news story a few months ago about bogus websites that use URLs that are commonly misspelled legit websites. If you make the common misspelling, you get a legit looking facsimile of the legit website and where they have their ways to screw you over. Point is, when you try to hit that "legit" website, be careful that you didn't screw up.
 

madoka

Diamond Member
Jun 22, 2004
4,344
712
121
I almost fell for a scam once. I got an email from Microsoft which was definitely a fake account, threatening on my computer security and was trying to get a hand on my account details. Glad I take suggestions from SPAM DELETED which identifies these emails by their signatures and blocks them.

LOL! Oh the irony!
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,234
1,720
126
its too much. my ironyometer blew its gasket.
a .org malware masquerading as antivirus that protects against phishing while trying to phislh, is just .. too many broken brain circuits to be real.
 

Stopsignhank

Platinum Member
Mar 1, 2014
2,577
1,979
136
WOW, please tell me more about this K7 antivirus program. They sound amazing. Is it free or is there a nominal fee?
 

Iron Woode

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 10, 1999
31,081
12,590
136
its too much. my ironyometer blew its gasket.
a .org malware masquerading as antivirus that protects against phishing while trying to phislh, is just .. too many broken brain circuits to be real.
2da0wew.jpg


:p
 
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Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
39,300
9,216
136
I still buy books. They never need to be recharged and never need tech support.
The pages do yellow if the paper isn't very good... over time, and sometimes the printing just plain sucks. This happened to me with a library checkout a couple months ago, it was just unreadable. I buy books too, more than I buy for my Kindle, actually, but I have quite a few free Kindle books and some are very cheap (e.g. $0.99). I am reading Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around the World," he was the first to do that and it cost me 99 cents on my Kindle. The illustrations actually look OK if I use a magnifying glass!