Weird phone call! "online pc doctor" - Only thread on these scam calls please

new_maniac

havetoquit wrote: »

This is what works for me and not only saves me from having to listen, but has stopped them from ever calling me again; I simply put the phone on the table and let them talk to themselves. They soon realize they are wasting their time. Always wait for them to speak and do not respond, then Bob's your uncle.

I apply this to all cold calls, Indian and other supposed PC doctor scams and so on.

Hope this helps.

Lol, i've also heard that if you tell them you have a Mac they can't do anything for you and promptly end the conversation and hang up

clint_silver

do the "I cant make out the spelling" thing, it really REALLY annoys them

him when he's trying to get you to enter a word, he'll get you to bring the windows event viewer which you really should have no business going into view unless you know what youre looking at as you wouldnt know how to interpret anyway they go us them as a way of worrying you. but trust me theres nothing to worry about in there even though there will be some alerts.

him "Can you please click start, run and then type eventvwr"
me : "can yo spell that please.
him "E"
me "B'
him"no E"
me "yes, B"
him "no, E, like you would have at the start of the word Every"
me "ah, ok, sorry, E, your accent is very hard to understand"
him "great, then V."
me: "B"
him "no, V"
me "yes, BBBahahahahahahaha"
him: "fck you"
... keep that going until he hangs up or you start crying laughing which I do every time. 7-8 times at this stage. I dont even open the computer anymore,
"have you clicked on the icon",
"I have" (says me watching telly)


I break them every time. Old friends at this stage

new_maniac

I really do feel for less tech savvy people who get caught out by these things though, there should really be TV ad's against these sort of cold calls because it is blatantly for hacking

Irishgoatman

Who would pay for the ads?.

Over here in Mayo people frequently ring/email/text in to the local radio station warning that these con men are still around.

These warnings goes out over the airwaves free.

new_maniac

Irishgoatman wrote: »

Who would pay for the ads?.

Over here in Mayo people frequently ring/email/text in to the local radio station warning that these con men are still around.

These warnings goes out over the airwaves free.

Well it was more of an example, if this sort of community advertising is in place fair enough, it would be good to see more coverage and awareness of these sort of things, that's all i'm saying

Irishgoatman

new_maniac wrote: »

Well it was more of an example, if this sort of community advertising is in place fair enough, it would be good to see more coverage and awareness of these sort of things, that's all i'm saying

Sorry, I wasn't being rude just pointing out the problem.

My suggestion would be for anyone on this thread, who listens to the radio at all, to text/email in to one of the many chat shows and ask that they highlight this scam.

That's really the only way to get it out to more people.

clint_silver

Irishgoatman wrote: »

Sorry, I wasn't being rude just pointing out the problem.

My suggestion would be for anyone on this thread, who listens to the radio at all, to text/email in to one of the many chat shows and ask that they highlight this scam.

That's really the only way to get it out to more people.

you mean something like this

http://www.garda.ie/Documents/User/Computer%20Fraud%20Advice.pdf

or this

http://www.independent.ie/regionals/sligochampion/news/garda-warning-on-computer-scam-27582782.html

Irishgoatman

Exactly, but I would still suggest that people ring their local radio station as the more vulnerable people are more likely to hear of the scam this way imo.

flazio

These fraudsters seem to be on the try again so look out, this time an american number shows up on the caller ID, not sure if I'm allowed to divulge it but, just be aware.

My name is URL

Oh god.. had a call from this crowd earlier today and told them to basically get lost.

Phone rang again a few minutes ago, strange number and a guy with broken English on the line. I immediately launched into an angry rant about how I know it's a scam and so on.. your man was stunned. Turned out to be some poor fecker just doing a customer satisfaction survey for Samsung

whitelightrider

Had a missed call from 01 7061200 last night so it looks like theyre on the prowl again.

Vinny-Chase

I had one tonight. Thanks to Google for throwing up this thread.

excollier

whitelightrider wrote: »

Had a missed call from 01 7061200 last night so it looks like theyre on the prowl again.

Yeah, that number called me yesterday, and she told me my "Windows" computer had numerous viruses and security issues, that they would help me to fix.
I replied "I didn't know I had a Windows computer".
She hung up immediately

Anacou

Yeah, they're still going strong. Favorite time for calling me now is between 8-8.30 am!!!

Also, anyone getting calls from a home insulation/energy survey crowd? Have agents in area etc, would like to do free survey - they seem to be trying to match names to numbers as they will always ask is this Mr/Mrs x. Have had at least 8/10 calls from them over the past months. Needless to say, never give out name.

Duzzie

Just had a phonecall from 002011772013 from an Indian sounding man saying that they were from Microsoft and that they had detected DNS Changer Malware on a computer registered at ...(read out my address) and that my computers were at "imminent risk of crashing". I had not heard of this before but was very suspicious so stalled him, making him repeat things a few times whilst I did a bit of googling. He got me to run eventvwr and told me that the errors in it were due to the malware. He then said that he would talk me through the procedure to remove the malware. At this point I had seen enough on Google to smell a rat so told him that I was on my way out the door and could he call me back later, he was reluctant and said it wouldn't take long, I told him I had to go, so he said he would call back later, will be interesting to see if he does.

The scarey part is that he had my name, phone number and address, which i guess they could have got from the phone book. I am very sceptical about virus warnings and emails so smelt a rat straight away, but they were very convincing and can understand how people fall for this scam. Thankfully I wasnt caught out.

The Glass Key

Last call I had was about 3 weeks back, they called about 6 times from an 001.... number over the period of a fortnight until my wife picked up (I just let it ring as first time it rang it was their auto dialer and no one on the phone). The guy wanted to tell me about a problem my computer had and that he would fix it for me, my reply isn't recordable. Stange thing was after I spoke to them the calls stopped.

Trompette

Regarding the post address, I got a post letter with stamp few weeks ago from ABC Loteria International Spain.
This is a scam as well.
They have my name and address where I am living just for 1 year.

I NEVER write the name of the village I am living in Gaelic but only in English. The address was with the Gaelic name.
After a check in my different house contracts, I found the culprit.
VODAFONE is the only to send me documents by post mail with the Gaelic name.
They probably sell the customers file.

This is how the guy from Micro$oft ;-) knows your name and address.

mattjack

They've been just on to me ..... again.
Anyway , I asked them to give me a minute because I'm on the frontline and there's a sniper trying to shoot me.......

Irishgoatman

I've had so many of these calls in the past that I can no longer be bothered to even wind them up. It was fun doing it at first but now boring.

Any number that comes up on my 'phone with an unrecognizable international code just gets ignored. Just turn the music/radio/television up louder to drown out the 'phone:).

DavidCollins

So this morning I read this article about a rise in fake Microsoft tech support calls, and then at midday I get a call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft who's detected problems on the computer. He knew the name of the main person of the house, which makes me wonder where they get their info from, and I just tried to stall him for about 10 mins until he figured out, said he thought I was joking around, and hug up after I tried to throw in a line to make him feel remorseful. The number came up on caller ID as PRIVATE so no luck there.

annieoburns

We regularly get these calls also. One ploy is to pretend to be a machine and say "please enter your code" or "incorrect details" or somesuch. With luck your number will be flagged as non residential and fall off the list. This seemed to have worked for a bit but now we are back on the list... calls come when we are out so my answer message confirms me as a live person.

I am more concerned for elderly people and the upset it might cause even tripping when rushing to get to an ringing phone. There is a call screening device that only lets thru 'known' numbers and all others go direct to voice mail and do not ring out. I think it costs £100 or so.

srsly78

Was getting weekly calls from our lovely Indian support crew, but it seems to have stopped. Maybe telling them to fook off finally had the desired effect?

I even run an IT consultancy company here, so they get really confused when I offer THEM support instead. Sir, please being to turning it off and on...

Joe prim

Don't know if this is particularly new, but in the last few days we've had a few calls from "Mastercard and Visa security Department telling me someone is making unauthorised payments on my account, and offering to cancel my card and issue a new one. I had a long conversation this morning with a lady (sounded Indian but claimed to be in Ireland), obviously she needed my various details-numbers, security codes,PIN etc. despite having issued the card.I demanded to speak to my personal banker, "Pat Byrne" and I was transferred to another gentleman, who assured me that he was indeed "Pat Byrne", although I suspect from his accent that he was also from the sub-continent. We had a long chat, although his knowledge of GAA was very poor, and despite being based in "Galway" , he did'nt have much to say about the weather either. He made numerous attempts to separate me from my credit card details, despite my offers to "post them on" or to "call in person" to the office.I reminded him that "he", personally, had instructed me never to give out details over the phone. His position was that this injunction of course did not apply to him, as I could trust him, and anyway our call was "being recorded" for security purposes. After about a half- hour of this bullcrap even "Pat Byrne" realised he was having his chain pulled, and got a bit nasty.
I know most sensible people would recognise this scam for what it is straight away, and there is a bit of fun to be derived from seeing how many additional lies the scammers can be induced to tell.However there probably are vulnerable people about who could fall for this scam, so let your elderly (or just naive) friends and relatives know that this scam is now out there, along with the various "fix your computer" scams, and not to give out any info about their finances to random callers.

The Glass Key

Just interested are these predominantly land line calls? Just wondered as I've never had one to a mobile number?

srsly78

Land line. Pretty sure they got my number form public company records.

Last year I was getting annoying calls on my mobile tho, but it was always silence.

Jocelynel

The Glass Key wrote: »

Just interested are these predominantly land line calls? Just wondered as I've never had one to a mobile number?

yeah, i think it's just landlines cause i've never had one to my mobile
last night i got a call from 00212340181. i didn't answer it, but 00212 is morocco

srsly78

They get really confused when I offer THEM technical support. But they hang up when I ask if they have received any strange technical support calls from India.

DavidCollins

Nice going there Joe Prim, it's tricky to keep them on the line for a prolonged period of time but its one of the best things you can do. Every moment they stay talking to you is another moment they lose in trying to rope some other poor sucker into their scam.

The Glass Key

DavidCollins wrote: »

Nice going there Joe Prim, it's tricky to keep them on the line for a prolonged period of time but its one of the best things you can do. Every moment they stay talking to you is another moment they lose in trying to rope some other poor sucker into their scam.

+ they have to be paying for the call - hopefully

Joe prim

The Glass Key wrote: »

+ they have to be paying for the call - hopefully

I suspect they're using some form of VOIP that costs them little or nothing, but at least their time is being wasted, and it's free amusement if you have an idle moment.