Deep Concerns: Telephone calls from "Windows Tech Support" over four months

[Craig234]

Shockingly, I kept two of them on the phone over an hour recently.

Immediately, I told the person he was a criminal, and that he should think about his poor morality and the harm he's doing to innocent people.

That led to the hour plus conversation with all kinds of lies of where he was (a New York address), his family, threats by him, transferring me to his 'supervisor' where similar things were repeated - even though it was clear I was going only to keep telling them they were criminals and were doing wrong and keep them on the phone so they couldn't scam others while on the phone with me - I told them exactly that - they stayed on the call. He said he wouldn't hang up, and I said fine, I'm happy to keep you tied up.

At one point, he said could I help him find legitimate work, and he'd immediately quit the place he was at. Could I find him a girl. It was just trolling gibberish, but I played along with that as well to keep him on the line, talking about how he can look for positions, and how I might help him after he leaves.

It's just bizarre how long they stayed on the call, going from occasional rage to discussing my statements they were criminals and explaining their own scam to them.

They're scum.

 

[SolMiester]

I have lots of fun with them on th ephone and make sure I engage them for as long as possible to waste their time and phone call costs...LOL, I have tried handing phone to my 4 yr old, played the real dumb guy, or confused Mac user, and a few others...its quite fun winding them up and them letting them know im a network engineer at the end of the call....some of them get quite tichy!

 

[Red Squirrel]

I have lots of fun with them on th ephone and make sure I engage them for as long as possible to waste their time and phone call costs...LOL, I have tried handing phone to my 4 yr old, played the real dumb guy, or confused Mac user, and a few others...its quite fun winding them up and them letting them know im a network engineer at the end of the call....some of them get quite tichy!

Hahaha that's great.

That's kind of what I want to do if I get a call, I'll act really dumb but at the end I'll just randomly start acting all smart and stuff and let them know I was playing them the whole time. "But while I have you on the phone I actually do have a problem with another computer..." See if they actually fall for it.

 

[Craig234]

Hahaha that's great.

That's kind of what I want to do if I get a call, I'll act really dumb but at the end I'll just randomly start acting all smart and stuff and let them know I was playing them the whole time. "But while I have you on the phone I actually do have a problem with another computer..." See if they actually fall for it.

It's not that easy, because their script quickly has you taking steps it's clear if you don't.

I've tried other approaches before, the call I type about above was 'I don't want to bother with this, I'll just say he's a criminal and should think about it' and he'll hang up.

That's why it was shocking how he stayed on the call that long.

 

[Red Squirrel]

It's not that easy, because their script quickly has you taking steps it's clear if you don't.

I've tried other approaches before, the call I type about above was 'I don't want to bother with this, I'll just say he's a criminal and should think about it' and he'll hang up.

That's why it was shocking how he stayed on the call that long.

yeah they seem to hang up quite easily from the few times I had a call. I just told them my computer was not turning on, was going to see how long I can get them to help me troubleshoot that. :awe:

The guy figured it was not worth the time and hung up I guess.

 

[RelaxTheMind]

my mom got one of those calls. she just told them her son is an IT.

my gf got a call and i was there i told her to tell them we use linux. guy hung up. kinda wanted to talk to them for the giggles.

 

[John Connor]

That sounds like fun. Even more fun would be if you had it so it sends them to an IVR with tons of options that make no sense that just brings them in a loop, and records the whole process.

"Thank you for calling our residence. You now have 9 options to choose from. Please listen carefully as our menus have changed. Please note that your call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.

If you would like to inquire about our next yard sale, press 1.
If you would like to speak to one of the kids, press 2
If you would like to speak to an adult, press 3
To repeat these options, press 4
to continue with the rest of the options, press 5
....

And have all those options have even more options. Make 0 go to Siri.

I need to setup an Asterisk box one day and mess with this.

HAHAHAHA. Yeah, it does have per-recorded voice that plays when they call. There are like 10 you can chose from and you can make your own.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Well, I started this thread yesterday, now into its third page.

I sent around an e-mail with my story to friends -- local and national.

Then, they sent it to other friends, and I got responses.

All that being said, I still feel stoooo-pid. I'd hung up the phone some ten times since the calls started earlier in the year, and as I must've said three times here, "I came THAT CLOSE yesterday."

I chose to "decline" using TeamViewer. I later found that it was listed in my Kaspersky "Trusted" list -- some four entries -- which I changed to "blocked." There were five registry entries, but they contained all null values. There's no "Teamviewer" entry under CTRL-Panel->Programs & Features. As of today, some of the program exe's and dll's are still sitting on the HDD in a "User" folder. I could just delete them and delete the registry entries. The dates and times on this detritus points to the phone call yesterday morning at 9:11 AM.

 

[Craig234]

Well, I started this thread yesterday, now into its third page.

I sent around an e-mail with my story to friends -- local and national.

Then, they sent it to other friends, and I got responses.

All that being said, I still feel stoooo-pid. I'd hung up the phone some ten times since the calls started earlier in the year, and as I must've said three times here, "I came THAT CLOSE yesterday."

I chose to "decline" using TeamViewer. I later found that it was listed in my Kaspersky "Trusted" list -- some four entries -- which I changed to "blocked." There were five registry entries, but they contained all null values. There's no "Teamviewer" entry under CTRL-Panel->Programs & Features. As of today, some of the program exe's and dll's are still sitting on the HDD in a "User" folder. I could just delete them and delete the registry entries. The dates and times on this detritus points to the phone call yesterday morning at 9:11 AM.

Don't feel bad. The first time they called me, I know way better than this sort of thing and was quickly sure it was a scam and decided to play along, but they were good, and when the first thing they wanted me to do was to run that thing that shows OS errors, I wasn't familiar with it and was surprised at how good a script they had, it was convincing. I stopped them when I couldn't play along any more without it being clear, but they were very good at getting people to just do the next thing they said to do.

After hanging up that call, by googling what they'd had me run, I quickly found the scam and learned more about it.

(By the way, if people ever want to play along with the credit card scammers, one way is to use your real card but switch two numbers in the last four. They try to identify people who are playing them by asking for the phone number for customer service off of the card - which you can safely give them - they can match to their list. That seems to lull them in for a while. The first part of your card number identifies the type of card and issuer, so don't change those. If just those two later numbers are switch, it'll pass their tests for the first part being valid, but not work for any charges. I've kept them on the phone a long time also by going through that at length - check the number, try it again - and then finally 'oh! I just noticed I grabbed the old card by accident, let me get the new one...')

By the way, these telemarketers generally use spoofed phone numbers.

It's frustrating that the phone system is designed to allow spoofing so easily. I know of no valid reason for it, and it seems very effective.

I've gone so far as to use the phone company's command to 'send the last number that called you securely to your local law enforcement', and that was useless. My local law enforcement had no idea what I was talking about for a long time, and I finally got to the one guy who handles phone issues, and he had no idea where that number goes. Comcast phone support confirmed that it's useless anyway, because it sends the *spoofed* number, not the real one, and they have no idea how to get the real one either.

I called my Congressman's staff in Washington D. C. to ask them for a contact in the FCC to ask why they don't research fixing the spoofing situation, and that went nowhere. The FCC once had a contest looking for ideas how to reduce telemarketing calls, but that's long over, and it's not at all easy to reach anyone there on something like this. I don't think a phone system overhaul is likely any time soon, obviously.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Today's news reveals more large banks announcing cyber-attacks from Russian criminal gangs.

As we build up our own household fiefdoms of digital infrastructure, as ISPs and other organizations move to meet demand, a person might become ambivalent over NSA. Protecting our communications is, after all, one of their main missions. Nothing wrong with FCC's involvement or the other agencies, either.

 

[DaTT]

Well, I started this thread yesterday, now into its third page.

I sent around an e-mail with my story to friends -- local and national.

Then, they sent it to other friends, and I got responses.

All that being said, I still feel stoooo-pid. I'd hung up the phone some ten times since the calls started earlier in the year, and as I must've said three times here, "I came THAT CLOSE yesterday."

I chose to "decline" using TeamViewer. I later found that it was listed in my Kaspersky "Trusted" list -- some four entries -- which I changed to "blocked." There were five registry entries, but they contained all null values. There's no "Teamviewer" entry under CTRL-Panel->Programs & Features. As of today, some of the program exe's and dll's are still sitting on the HDD in a "User" folder. I could just delete them and delete the registry entries. The dates and times on this detritus points to the phone call yesterday morning at 9:11 AM.

Just a heads up for you, Team Viewer is an excellent program, as long as you are the only one with your password obviously....lol

I used to use it to control my home computer from my smart phone.

 

[13Gigatons]

Maybe screen all your calls?

Maybe screen all your calls?

Maybe screen all your calls?

Maybe screen all your calls?

 

[Wyndru]

I explained to my sister this was a scam after her 1st call. On the 2nd call she basically gave them false information and he spent over a half hour trying to explain to her that the error code she provided "id10t" was not a valid code. He eventually asked her if she could go to a website so she just told him that the site he sent her to had child pornography and she was going to report him to the authorities. The call didn't last long after that.

 

[dank69]

My first words to him were "go fuck yourself" and he replied "well fuck you then" and he hung up on me. I thought that was very unprofessional of him.

 

[DaTT]

My first words to him were "go fuck yourself" and he replied "well fuck you then" and he hung up on me. I thought that was very unprofessional of him.

I did something similar, but I spoke to him in an Indian accent (the best I could do anyways) and it ended with him calling me a mudderfucker and hanging up.

 

[Ichinisan]

My first words to him were "go fuck yourself" and he replied "well fuck you then" and he hung up on me. I thought that was very unprofessional of him.

"Unprofessional?" I disagree. Fucking you *is* his profession!

 

[TeeJay1952]

Control. We all fight for it. Can't control the government, Can't control our kids but we can amuse ourselves yanking the chain of a chain yanker from India. Good Times.