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

johnfás

shaneny wrote: »

I think Eircom should block all these numbers, as most calls are to eircom numbers, the number is the same, someone should report them!

I did - Eircom didn't want anything to do with it. They said they can't block numbers. To which I said if there was a court order against me not to contact someone could they block my dialling of that number. The lady confirmed that they could. So I put it to her that the reality is they will not, rather than can not, block numbers. She didn't have alot else to say.

So I rang ComReg, who said that it was not within their remit and told me to file a report at my local Garda station... which I haven't bothered.

yimrsg

Had one of them calls there, my mam took the call and asked straight away "is this a scam?" The one on the other end goes "Who told you about that?"
There goes any chance of messing with them!

She's had her name and we're on eircom. I then said I was a guarda and asked who is calling and the lady with an indian accent said "Anna Brown".

She persisted and asked if my pc was running slow and I told her to "f**k off we have a mac". I'd like to think my call won't be used for training purposes.

jack presley

yimrsg wrote: »

Had one of them calls there, my mam took the call and asked straight away "is this a scam?" The one on the other end goes "Who told you about that?"
There goes any chance of messing with them!

She's had her name and we're on eircom. I then said I was a guarda and asked who is calling and the lady with an indian accent said "Anna Brown".

She persisted and asked if my pc was running slow and I told her to "f**k off we have a mac". I'd like to think my call won't be used for training purposes.

Unfortunately fobbing them off or even being utterly rude and angry with them doesn't mean they're finished calling you. I've played the "I have no computer" card, I've told them I only have a Mac and on another occasion I shouted obscenities down the phone at them and they still call back at least every second day. One time after repeatedly telling the bloke to f%$k off and hanging up, he rang back less than a minute later. There doesn't seem to be any way to get rid of them.

Only one of my handsets has the caller ID thing, I should really only answer calls on that one from now on

snowyeoghan

johnfás wrote: »

I did - Eircom didn't want anything to do with it. They said they can't block numbers. To which I said if there was a court order against me not to contact someone could they block my dialling of that number. The lady confirmed that they could. So I put it to her that the reality is they will not, rather than can not, block numbers. She didn't have alot else to say.

So I rang ComReg, who said that it was not within their remit and told me to file a report at my local Garda station... which I haven't bothered.

It's difficult for Eircom or any phone provider to do anything.
It is really easy to obtain a phone number and then ditch it - all within a couple of minutes, for example, buying a Skype phone number, and now you can also get a Google phone number for free.

The problem occurs after the scammer ditches the phone number, a legimate user buys a phone with that assigned number, and it is blocked on making calls to customers of Eircom, BT, At&t etc...

I deal with this a lot, and to my knowledge there is nothing you can do about it except for hanging up.

naglfar

Unfortunately my mother is after falling for this . The application Support-LogMeInRescue is installed on the laptop and they had access to control the laptop when they were getting rid of the viruses. Very worried now about what people have been saying about them having full control of the laptop. Any spyware stuff I should download to remove this?And how will I get rid of the LogMeInRescue App to remove that remote support that they may have?It's actually really worrying . Werent able to get a refund when we rang up trying to cancel it.

jack presley

naglfar wrote: »

Unfortunately my mother is after falling for this . The application Support-LogMeInRescue is installed on the laptop and they had access to control the laptop when they were getting rid of the viruses. Very worried now about what people have been saying about them having full control of the laptop. Any spyware stuff I should download to remove this?And how will I get rid of the LogMeInRescue App to remove that remote support that they may have?It's actually really worrying . Werent able to get a refund when we rang up trying to cancel it.

I'd keep an eye on your credit card statements and other bank account details if I was you especially if you buy stuff off Amazon and the like. I'm not a computer whizz or anything but I'd say you'd have to do something like a complete clean up off your PC andrun every virus/spyware/malware checker known to man.

naglfar

jack presley wrote: »

I'd keep an eye on your credit card statements and other bank account details if I was you especially if you buy stuff off Amazon and the like. I'm not a computer whizz or anything but I'd say you'd have to do something like a complete clean up off your PC andrun every virus/spyware/malware checker known to man.

Yeah true,it wasnt even paid through paypal but something called G2s or the likes. I'm mainly worried about this remote access that they may constantly have to the laptop and being able to access anything. Its ok if I can give them permission to do so like what had to be done the first time but I hope it doesnt mean they can anytime they want now. I just want to delete whatever was installed by them. They were saying on the phone when asking about cancelling the subscription that they cant do that or send a refund as the software as already been installed and that the laptop would freeze if its messed around with..

Amalgam

Just to state the obvious (sorry..), as long as the computer is disconnected from your router\modem\etc (offline), you're safe from having the PC\Laptop accessed remotely.

Sorry to hear of your Mum's problems naglfar, I'd be livid myself.

Regardless of what has happened to the computer, my first action would be to cancel whatever bank card was used, go to the bank (explain the situation to them) and be issued a new one.

Most Irish banks have a crisis number too, you *can* get a card frozen over the phone. I would look about doing that as soon as possible.

youcancallmeal

Yeah cancel the credit card and ask the bank to try and cancel any charges that the scammers may have made. With regards to your PC being comprimised the only way to be 100% that it is clean is to wipe it and reinstall the Windows operating system. If you haven't got a clue about it then maybe start a new thread in this forum or go to the Virus & Malware removal forum to try and get any nasty stuff removed. Good luck


EDIT: Also you can just disable logmein by right clicking the logmein icon in the task bar down the bottom right hand side of the screen. They may have installed other stuff though which is why you should try and get the PC cleaned.

dacogawa

They wont answer me on their 'live chat' anymore I just get a "Sorry no operators are currently online to provide Live support at this time." even trying from linux, so I think they have my ip sussed.

Also sifycorp.com haven't replyed to any of my emails (if you dont know what i'm on about goto pages 10 & 12 of this thread) I dont want anyone who doesn't know what they are at to compromise themselves but can anyone else get on to the live chat on www.onlinepccare.com ? I'm really starting to get a bit annoyed with this lot. incase anyone wants their address

Registrant:
Onlinepccare
M.K.Shah ()
835,Pblock new alipore
Kolkata
West bengal,700053
IN
Tel. +091.3340101614

naglfar

Credit card has been cancelled now anyway. Prob gonna do a full wipe out or format of the laptop to be safe. They still keep ringing a lot of the time. How do you block their number?I'm with UPC

Gadgetman496

naglfar wrote: »

Credit card has been cancelled now anyway. Prob gonna do a full wipe out or format of the laptop to be safe. They still keep ringing a lot of the time. How do you block their number?I'm with UPC

Divert your incoming calls to your local Garda station for a couple of days?

Go on, it would be worth it lol!

-

delta_bravo

I got a call from Virtual Pc Doctor. Did the usual made me open the "Computer Managment" screen to see all the errors. Told them I wasnt interested but asked them where they could obtain my name, address, phone num. The person said from surveys and some sorts pass on info to them. So then I said goodbye, hung up and emailed their website to query how they got our information. They replied within a few minutes asking for my number and they rang me (int code 006?), another asian person who just said that they dont obtain info from stores but have info databases for Ireland, UK, Australia, Canada. I suppose its not too difficult with phone books online. The guy was very pleasant. I doubt the company is interested in taking cc info or exploiting your pc, i think its more of a con to take money off inexperienced computer users. I doubt they are doing anything illegal

youcancallmeal

delta_bravo wrote: »

I doubt they are doing anything illegal

I'm no expert but I'm pretty certain it could be construed as fraud as they are taking money off people in return for nothing basically?

wc72

I got a call from these idiots this evening. The number was 0044000000000. I should have known better than to answer it. There was an indian sounding guy who called me by name and said he was from pc doctor online and then he said something about windows.
I immediately knew something was off told him I wasnt interested and not to ring again. About an hour later I got a call from another English number that I just ignored. I hope this isnt the start of non stop ringing.
My phone line is with eircom so I rang them straight away and explained what happened they told me they couldn't do anything and couldn't block any numbers, they were no help what-so-ever.

delta_bravo

youcancallme>al wrote: »

I'm no expert but I'm pretty certain it could be construed as fraud as they are taking money off people in return for nothing basically?

Well the people i were talking to were going to give me a deluxe copy of avg and teach me how to make the pc run faster. Im sure their "lessons" would consitute a service whether or not they are useful is irrelevant really.

Dermot Illogical

youcancallme>al wrote: »

I'm no expert but I'm pretty certain it could be construed as fraud as they are taking money off people in return for nothing basically?

If that constituted a fraud, half the country would be behind bars.
Hard selling isn't illegal. Persuading someone to buy something useless isn't illegal.
In this particular case they try to associate themselves with Microsoft, O2 or whatever, but they usually say it ambiguously. Directly stating that they are operating on behalf of one of those companies would make any sale a criminal matter, as there is deception involved in parting the mark from their money. Placing malware onto the mark's PC would also be an offence under the Criminal Damage Act. However, prosecution would be close to impossible given where these people are located.

jack presley

They're back!

I had a week of peace without any calls but got another today. How long;s it going to take for them to get the message?

ED E

My brother got one today. After a min he went silent for about ten seconds, then shouted and scared the feck out of the sap. I want to answer another one to have a laugh with them.

garhjw

unfortunately my mum fell for it on saturday. however, the credit card she tried ot pay with was maxed out so the transaction didn't go through!!

have cancelled the card and am having the PC checked out to make sure there is no spyware.

they must have rung our house 10 times already.

Dermot Illogical

Symantec called them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhV6rIgyQ-s

Cuddlesworth

garhjw wrote: »

unfortunately my mum fell for it on saturday. however, the credit card she tried ot pay with was maxed out so the transaction didn't go through!!

have cancelled the card and am having the PC checked out to make sure there is no spyware.

they must have rung our house 10 times already.

the charge will come through straight onto the new card. You will need to inform the credit card company of the specific details given and report it as fraud.

ED E

RT66 wrote: »

Symantec called them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhV6rIgyQ-s

Not a company I'm a huge fan of but well done.

Consumer Agency/Other should really run a TV infomercial on this though. Nobody will see that video until they've actually got stung.

garhjw

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

the charge will come through straight onto the new card. You will need to inform the credit card company of the specific details given and report it as fraud.

thanks cuddlesworth, i checked with my mum but it was actually laser and not credit card. there was insufficient funds for the transaction so it won't be taken from the new card.

Fresh Pots

Could it be that everyone who is receiving these calls has a counterfeit version of an OS running in their house? One that has some spyware to save names and phone numbers? It would explain why people are getting the calls on all different ISP's.

Gadgetman496

Source: The Guardian.co.uk

The scam always starts the same way: the phone rings at someone's home, and the caller – usually with an Indian accent – asks for the householder, quoting their name and address before saying "I'm calling for Microsoft. We've had a report from your internet service provider of serious virus problems from your computer."

Dire forecasts are made that if the problem is not solved, the computer will become unusable.

The puzzled owner is then directed to their computer, and asked to open a program called "Windows Event Viewer". Its contents are, to the average user, worrying: they look like a long list of errors, some labelled "critical". "Yes, that's it," says the caller. "Now let me guide you through the steps to fixing it."

The computer owner is directed to a website and told to download a program that hands over remote control of the computer, and the caller "installs" various "fixes" for the problem. And then it's time to pay a fee: £185 for a "subscription" to the "preventative service".

The only catch: there was never anything wrong with the computer, the caller is not working for Microsoft or the internet service provider, and the owner has given a complete stranger access to every piece of data on their machine.

An investigation by the Guardian has established that this scam, which has been going on quietly since 2008 but has abruptly grown in scale this year, is being run from call centres based in Kolkata, by teams believed to have access to sales databases from computer and software companies.

Matt, a Londoner who has recently set up his own company, had just arrived home at 7pm when the phone rang and someone with an Indian accent asked for him by name, quoting his address. "It's Windows tech support here," said the caller. "We have reason to believe that there's a problem with your computer. There have been downloads of malware and spyware, and they're slowing down your computer."

He went along with the caller's demands to log into a website and enter a six-digit code into his computer. "I thought it was a new service from [Microsoft] Windows," he said. "I could see them moving the cursor about. It took about half an hour."

The caller could not have obtained Matt's name via HP or PC World, where he bought the machine, because he gave his business address, not his home address, during the purchase.

This suggests that the caller was using the phonebook to find names. Patrick McCarthy, who lives in Dublin, received a call from one of the companies – but they addressed him by the name of the apartment block where he lives instead of his own name, a longstanding error in the Irish phone book.

Often, the victims are inexperienced or elderly, convinced by the apparent authority of the callers and the worrying contents of the Event Viewer. In fact, such "errors" are not indicative of any problems.

Investigators who have spoken to the Guardian on condition of anonymity say that one man, based in the city of Kota in Rajasthan, is behind the centres running the scams.

He has provided fake documentation to a number of payment companies including PayPal and Alertpay, a Montreal-based online payment company, to set up accounts which route money to a bank account in Kota with Axis Bank.

Though people on dozens of web forums have recorded their experiences with the scammers, police and trading standards officers in the UK are powerless to stop them.

UK telephone numbers for contacting the company on the sites are not "geographical" ‑ tied to a location ‑ but instead allocated to voice-over-internet providers.

That means that the calls connect internationally, but cost the scammers almost nothing when anyone calls them.

In the same way, it costs them virtually nothing to make the calls because the international part of the call goes via the internet.

If the payment has been made on a debit card ‑ as many are ‑ there is no hope of reversing the payment. A number of payment organisations used by the scammers have shut down their accounts. PayPal, the eBay-owned credit transfer company, and AlertPay have both taken rapid action against scam sites which used them.

In March, site hosting company Hostgator shut down one of the longest-running sites used for the alleged scam, F1Compstepuk.com, after complaints.

After confirming with Microsoft that the site was not acting for it, Hostgator immediately shut it down. Josh Loe, Hostgator's co-founder, said that following the initial complaint, "we asked for more information regarding this to confirm. We received a message from a Microsoft representative via this particular person who contacted us first about this. At that time it was enough evidence to close the site and it was done so the same day."

But one investigator who has been tracking the growth of the scam says the challenge is that new sites offering the same fake "service" keep popping up "like mushrooms".

At first the scammers tried desperately to maintain the reputation of their sites, by flooding any forum which garnered enough criticism of their activities with postings claiming that the site helped fix their machine.

But the poor spelling and grammar of the replies – allied to internet addresses which show that the commenters are based in India – contrasted sharply with that of people in the UK, US and Australia complaining about the attempted scam.

Now they have shifted to creating multiple sites from templates, using stock phrases and photos. However, investigators are sure that the same man ‑ and central operation ‑ is behind all of the schemes. "I don't think that this could really have spread that far. Even if they can see that some of their friends are making money from this, the calls are too similar every time," said one. "It's got to be the same organisation each time."

Microsoft denies any connection with the companies that call people up offering these services.

When contacted about the scams, Microsoft said it was "currently investigating a series of instances in which the business practices of an organisation within the Microsoft Partner Network [that] have given rise to significant concerns from a number of sources. We take matters such as these extremely seriously and will take any action that is appropriate once our investigation is complete."

Three weeks after being contacted by the Guardian, it issued another statement: "We confirm that we have taken action to terminate our relationship with certain partners who are clearly misrepresenting their relationship with us and using our company name in order to facilitate their telephone scam operations."

However, this week, two sites alleged to be involved were still listed as "Microsoft Gold Certified Partners", which Microsoft says means that they must have "demonstrated expertise" and "must employ a minimum number of Microsoft Certified Professionals".

The company has noticed the problem. "Microsoft does not make unsolicited phone calls to help you fix your computer," it says on its website.

"If you receive an unsolicited call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft Tech Support, hang up. We do not make these kinds of calls.

mach1982

Here simple solution tell them you use Linux , that will confuse them . If you really want to be a little devil tell them that it's BSD UNIX

hitbit

Hi,Yesterday I received a phone call from 0037167796528. The caller said he was from a company by the name of Computer Doctor Maintenance and that they had identified security issues that the mainstream security products would not protect against. He requested that I turn my pc on. When I declined telling him I had no problems and was quite happy with my security arrangements he became very insistant that I turn my pc on to the point that he seemed very irritated. I hung up. I did a little research and found that the phone number is a local number in Riga Latvia. I could not find a company by the name of Computer Doctor Maintenance registered in Riga nor could I find it in the Latvian phone directory. I checked on Who's Calling Me's site and found several others who have received calls from this number. Perhaps the members here might have more information about same. My gut feeling throughout the call was that some kind of criminal activity was involved. I never got the feeling that it was a that it was a cold call sales pitch. I posted the above info on SpyWareHammer www.spywarehammer.com and was advised that this is a big time scam that has been going on for the last 2 years. anyone who has given such callers any information or allowed them access to their pcs would be well advised to have a look at SpyWareHammers comments.
hitbit

gkelly19

jarvis wrote: »

Just got a phone call on my home phone from an Indian sounding guy climimng to be from "Online pc Doctor":eek:

He said he's ringing all windows xp and vista customers with regards to a system crash and told me to turn on my pc while he checks it for me!!!

I told him I'm on windows 7 and he said its all windows systems and they are certified to carry out this work by Microsoft!!!!

There was a delay on the phoneline so I presume he was calling from abroad.
He seemed genuinely shocked when I told him I'm not interested in him helping me and I wouldn't turn my pc on.

How weird is that whole phone call?
Anyone else get one or hear about one of these calls before?

I also got a cold call from Eircom 15 minutes before hand, I must be on some poxy list.

they rang me and me being stupid let them do wat they wanted as they told me it was free to check ,which is all they said they were going to do, and when they done it they told me i owed them 50 e ,when i said i wasnt paying them as number 1 because they said it was free, number 2, they wanted my credit card number , and as i told them i didnt want them to fix it they got so rude called me everyname under the sun and crashed my comp cost me 400e to get a knew one and im afraid to answer my phone incase its them:(

laros

im afraid to answer my phone incase its them

Hi gkelly
Sorry to hear you got caught out....they can only cause problems if you allow them access to your computer...... so if they do call you again just hang up the phone on them.

Lar