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Old 14-12-2015, 04:26
Alrightmate
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Aren't these calls criminal?
And if they aren't then why aren't they?

It's shocking how these scams to be allowed to operate.
Why aren't they pursued by the authorities for being criminal gangs?
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Old 14-12-2015, 11:49
Grumpy_Alan
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Aren't these calls criminal?
And if they aren't then why aren't they?

It's shocking how these scams to be allowed to operate.
Why aren't they pursued by the authorities for being criminal gangs?
They probably are but it is difficult, or impossible to identify the source. Usually Caller ID will show something like "Withheld", "Unavailable", "International" and sometimes even a seemingly legitimate phone number.
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Old 14-12-2015, 12:29
platelet
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Aren't these calls criminal?
And if they aren't then why aren't they?

It's shocking how these scams to be allowed to operate.
Why aren't they pursued by the authorities for being criminal gangs?
They are

They are

Prosectutions are rare due to the international component, but you do get the odd uk based conviction. Sentences seem a bit on the light side mind

http://www.theguardian.com/technolog...tence-and-fine

Microsoft have started suing a few in the states, which might be more productive
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Old 15-12-2015, 00:02
cnbcwatcher
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Presumably it was an international call then. I never pick up international calls.
It could well have been. I was at college so I didn't get a chance to inspect the caller ID to check out the number.
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Old 19-12-2015, 23:51
Blackjack Davy
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My mother got one of these calls yesterday. She isn't very worldly so they strung her on long enough to set up a Western Union money transfer and tried to take a fair bit of money from her. To their credit WU thought something was up and cancelled the transfer.

Sigh. I'm going to have some fun over xmas wiping the drives etc. Can't be sure they havn't put something nasty on it. I told her not to switch it on until I get there.
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Old 14-01-2016, 14:38
Grumpy_Alan
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Had one of these accursed calls at 7 am this morning.

I have to confess that my response was somewhat less than polite; perhaps even borderline abusive!
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Old 14-01-2016, 19:51
Grafenwalder
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I also received one today. I'm on caller id but as i was expecting a phone call, answered without checking first. I was suspicious from the start as why on earth would Microsoft be phoning folk?!!

"I'm calling from Microsoft and we've detected a large number of viruses coming from your computer, can you please turn it on now?" I told her, "no i'm about to go out and if so serious then 1) it will be picked up by my av and 2) email me the detail (which of course they couldn't!).

The caller cut the phone call!

This was the number: 001 859 814 8905
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Old 15-01-2016, 14:12
max99
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The scam is even smarter when they manage to get you to call them.

Some people might be automatically suspicious of a Microsoft call from out of the blue, but a scary Microsoft pop-up on their screen can be more believable:

https://malwaretips.com/blogs/wp-con...rror-Virus.jpg

I've seen numerous examples of this lately, and in almost each case the person thought it was genuine and made the phone call.
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Old 15-01-2016, 16:44
Grafenwalder
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The scam is even smarter when they manage to get you to call them.

Some people might be automatically suspicious of a Microsoft call from out of the blue, but a scary Microsoft pop-up on their screen can be more believable:

https://malwaretips.com/blogs/wp-con...rror-Virus.jpg

I've seen numerous examples of this lately, and in almost each case the person thought it was genuine and made the phone call.
It is and it needs stamping out though as others have pointed out, if the calls come from outside the UK it's doubtful we can do anything. It's down to Microsoft to get on top of it and they should be more than capable of that. Slam the perpetrators with the heaviest fines possible and put them out of business, though quite what their "business" is is anyones guess.
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Old 15-01-2016, 16:56
Grumpy_Alan
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The scam is even smarter when they manage to get you to call them.

Some people might be automatically suspicious of a Microsoft call from out of the blue, but a scary Microsoft pop-up on their screen can be more believable:

https://malwaretips.com/blogs/wp-con...rror-Virus.jpg

I've seen numerous examples of this lately, and in almost each case the person thought it was genuine and made the phone call.
Interesting pop-up.

But there are some clues as to its "authenticity".


Other than some pretty poor grammar, check the spelling mistakes -

harmfull not harmful

registery not registry

TOLL FREE and tollfree

failiure not failure



Duplicated paragraphs at the end.

A non UK phone number
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Old 15-01-2016, 18:32
radioanorak
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The web address in that pop up is a bit of a giveaway.
123helpmypc.com is not the sort of thing Microsoft would use.
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Old 20-01-2016, 15:10
Jimez
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I've had several of these calls from "Microsoft", all saying the same thing about my PC being infected with a virus. I managed to string one along for about 10 minutes, played a random Arnie soundboard and the chap on the phone was none the wiser. I love winding these chaps up.

Another i've had, i've kept the guy on hold as a "witness to a murder". Answered the call and said i'm from "x" and if you hang up, it's a criminal offense and you will be arrested.
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Old 12-04-2016, 21:45
Robbie01
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After many months of not getting any of these calls I've had two in two days. One yesterday (Monday) afternoon. The telephone number was showing as 02081507532, probably a spoofed number but one that was made to look like the caller was London based. I blocked the number. A Google check reveals plenty of reports about this number on the various "who called me" type sites.

Next call was at 8.30am this morning, this time number shown as witheld but I was half asleep and answered without thinking. Once again the same script about the guy calling from Microsoft Windows. I just hung up.
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Old 29-05-2016, 22:22
zx50
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They called me either yesterday or Friday. As soon as they said 'Microsoft' and I heard their Indian accent I told them I knew it was a scam and then put the phone down. The VERY short conversation went like this...

(after declaring that they were from Microsoft)
Them: Are you the user of the computer?
Me: Yeah, this is a scam. Bye.

I then hung up. I should really have called them parasites before hanging up. Too late now though.
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Old 29-05-2016, 22:28
zx50
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The web address in that pop up is a bit of a giveaway.
123helpmypc.com is not the sort of thing Microsoft would use.
Yep! I wouldn't take notice of what any pop-up says, no matter what it said about my computer being missing important files. The address does look like a total giveaway.
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Old 31-05-2016, 22:46
No-One
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Mum had 2 calls over the weekend that went something like this

Him: Hello, I'm calling from Sky Broadband. We are calling you because we have detected a problem with your internet connection

Mum: But we don't get our internet from Sky

*CLICK*
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Old 01-06-2016, 13:14
Maccadanny
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They called me either yesterday or Friday. As soon as they said 'Microsoft' and I heard their Indian accent I told them I knew it was a scam and then put the phone down. The VERY short conversation went like this...

(after declaring that they were from Microsoft)
Them: Are you the user of the computer?
Me: Yeah, this is a scam. Bye.

I then hung up. I should really have called them parasites before hanging up. Too late now though.
You really should have strung them along for a while.
I had a call a few days ago and decided to act dumb and 'believe' everthing he told me. Luckily i had my computer on so i went along with telling him all the background processes that are 'slowing down' my PC. He got to the point of telling me how he could 'fix' my PC & that was when i launched my tirade of calling him all the b*stards under the sun. He soon got flustered but still tried denying it was all a scam but he hung up abruptly.
I just felt in the mood to waste their time & i felt better for it.
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Old 01-06-2016, 13:29
mklass
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Mum had 2 calls over the weekend that went something like this

Him: Hello, I'm calling from Sky Broadband. We are calling you because we have detected a problem with your internet connection

Mum: But we don't get our internet from Sky

*CLICK*
I have had the same sort of thing but they said they were calling from Talktalk... I had made a separate call previously to talktalk after receiving one of these calls and they said, the same as Microsoft when I rung them about being called that they NEVER call people with calls like that!... so as soon a I say!....'I know Microsoft/talktalk don't ring people'... they put the phone down!........
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Old 02-06-2016, 08:47
zx50
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I wish that a TON of computer users in Britain would somehow be informed about these parasite scammers. That would make it much more difficult for the scammers to successfully scam a load of average computer users.
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Old 02-06-2016, 10:13
No-One
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I wish that a TON of computer users in Britain would somehow be informed about these parasite scammers. That would make it much more difficult for the scammers to successfully scam a load of average computer users.
I wish one of those hacking groups would launch a mass DDOS attack against them
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Old 02-06-2016, 18:58
dmp
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I had one a little while ago and when he asked if he could speak to the main computer user I said yes it's my dog. He asked if he could speak to them and I told him no, he would have to bark at her, this went on for a few minutes before he realized I was taking the pee and hung up.
Dave
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Old 03-06-2016, 22:42
platelet
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I wish one of those hacking groups would launch a mass DDOS attack against them
Have you watched Nev's Indian call centre? It's remarkably easy for a con man to head to India and set one of these scams up. Since seeing that I've started to feel a bit sorry for the poor saps that get conned into reading the scripts out as I suspect more than a few believe their job is genuine

I've started to attempt to de-program them but never gotten past explain how the CLSID they are going to quote me cannot be unique because they are reading the same one out on every call

In a nut shell however I think the whole thing is a DDOS - there are probably thousands of these con merchants all running two bit operations they set up for a grand or two
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Old 03-06-2016, 23:25
Moleskin
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I get 1 or 2 a week, they used to pretend to be from Microsoft or "Windows" but now it's always BT.

They're a pain in the butt.
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Old 08-06-2016, 16:41
davejc64
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I used to get the fake Microsoft ones but now the most frequent ones are the ones claiming to be doing a UK lifestyle survey I haven't worked out quite what the scam is there, usually I just tell them I am not interested and ring off.
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Old 08-06-2016, 17:47
No-One
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Have you watched Nev's Indian call centre? It's remarkably easy for a con man to head to India and set one of these scams up. Since seeing that I've started to feel a bit sorry for the poor saps that get conned into reading the scripts out as I suspect more than a few believe their job is genuine
I don't see how they can think it's genuine when they run the Tree command (saying that it's a scanner) and then while it's scrolling through they type in things like "koobface found" "security expired" etc
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