scams going around in Canberra

Here is another way to deal with them: http://www.mocs.com.au/pages/telescammers.php

cleo said :

just goes to show how dumb they and think that I’m ever dumber!

poolroom!

Screaming Banshee # 5

Of course they know what they are doing, when I had a call from them, I asked where they were ringing from, she said Brisbane, so I asked for the telephone number there, of course it was wrong, so I said to her you have too many digits, so she asked another operator and she gave me another number, of course it wasn’t Brisbane, just goes to show how dumb they and think that I’m ever dumber!

Pommy bastard said :

Slashor said :

I was disappointed when they called. I had heard of the scam beforehand and would have loved to spent as long as possible wasting their time but had someone to be. 🙁

Who?

Nice pickup. I enjoyed that one!

Grrrr said :

Website addresses for these guys come and go, and they don’t all want you to download a malware-laden file. Some simply want to sell you tech-support you don’t want or need.

I don’t need it to be valid forever and always, just valid for long enough to look around it and work out who is doing what.
I’ve heard of the “give us a credit card now and we can help you” and the “download and run this file, it will help” variants, but the accessing a website and running the file one should have some kind of usable information from my perspective.
(and in lieu of someone releasing 09-10 poker machine figures, following a digital breadcrumb trail will have to satisfy my curiosity/boredom while I’m housebound…)

If you really want to mess them around, just have this ready on the computer.
http://www.realmofdarkness.net/pranks/arnold-soundboards.htm

Loading one of these and sending back nonsensical responses, it’s amazing how long you can string them along.

We’ve had the phone calls 3 or 4 times now. Each time the script has been slightly different. The last one I passed over to my other half who is in IT. He’s been hanging out for one of these calls. He dealt with that one in a somewhat creative way. Next time I’ll try the LINUX line. I like the sound of that.

Skidbladnir said :

They want you in front of the computer so you can go to a website, and download a file.

A beer at the next RA event for whoever can provide this thread with both website and file (without running it, of course).

Website addresses for these guys come and go, and they don’t all want you to download a malware-laden file. Some simply want to sell you tech-support you don’t want or need.

I had one of the latter calls – the “run prefetch, how many files do you see? that means you have a virus and need to buy tech support from us” call. I played along for a while, got transferred to someone else, then when they asked me for my credit card number I told them I didn’t have one. The person I was talking to angrily complained to the first person “this is all your fault” then they hung up.

My dad does a funny trick where by he tells the caller “hold on I have something on the stove” puts the phone down and leaves it. He came back 10 min later and picked the phone up once and they were still there.

I love to say yes to any call centre callers. No matter what question they ask, I just keep saying yes. Some of them take a very long time to work out I am just stringing them along. The guy the other night got quite annoyed and asked me if I was just going to waste his time, why did I answer the phone. Got a laugh out of that one.

They’re after seniors and parents who are so clueless they’ll accept a virus in the name of getting rid of one, or whose ‘children understand all this computer stuff, my son will come by later and show me what you mean once he connects his wi-fi to the Google for me‘.

String them along, get them talking.
They want you in front of the computer so you can go to a website, and download a file.

A beer at the next RA event for whoever can provide this thread with both website and file (without running it, of course).
I haven’t received the call recently, but my olds have and just hung up once they realised they were talking to India. Now I’m curious…

Another Linux user here. I’ve been longing for one of these calls so I can string them along. And yes, the Fake Name Generator is a brilliant way to play with these bastards!

Deano said :

The Fake Name Generator is the tool of choice here. Ask them if they can also provide software or hardware upgrades, and bill the whole thing to a valid sounding but fake name and credit card number.

I just tried that fake name generator thing and it came up with me being a 82 year old with an occupation of “Earth Driller”. However it did give other details that could be believable (as believable as this scam anyway).

We had two calls last fortnight and the folks had one.

I had tech services ring wanting to know if we had a computer problem. We do, our H key is missing. We talked for several minutes. In the end I was demanding he send us a new H key. He wanted me to be sitting in front of the computer, with it turned on. This all takes time. Eventually I said the wrong word and he got the shits and hung up. The word was LINUX.

Anyone got a spare H key.

Slashor said :

I was disappointed when they called. I had heard of the scam beforehand and would have loved to spent as long as possible wasting their time but had someone to be. 🙁

Who?

I haven’t had the ‘joy’ of this phonecall yet. But I have been getting a weird one recently- I answer, and all I heard is a pre-recorded woman’s voice (American) saying “goodbye” and then it hangs up. wtf?! I’ve gotten it 3 times over the past two weeks.

yeah, they called me too. I told them that I am an IT person. Hung up pretty quick.

Had the same experience a fortnight ago. Asked the (female) caller: “If you’re able to analyse my machine, is it a PC or a Mac”? I hoped to string her along so I could identify the company, but she hung (hanged?) up.

Maybe the same mob ringing up recently and claiming to be from the WA government revenue office, with $4000 that is yours – you just need to deposit $99 into an account to enable the transfer. hahaha, no.

(they knew ALL my personal details though, which really annoys me)

A friend responded, “You are lying because I am using linux” and got an immediate hang up.

http://www.scamwatch.gov.au/ doesn’t list it as a scam, probably because all they do is place a key logger on your (windows) machine. Maybe there is some other site for this sort scam.

I wonder what sort of success rate they have.

I just tell them that the call is being recorded and traced. They hang up quick smart.

The unfortunate thing is that the people who are making the calls are just call-centre workers who are working off a script and most likely dont even know they are part of a scam.

Provided you have the time available the best thing you can do is keep them on the phone as long as possible leading them on. If you hang up on them right away they move on and the next person they call might be the gullible one.

If their ROI is low enough because savvy people keep wasting their time….perhaps they’ll stop.

The Fake Name Generator is the tool of choice here. Ask them if they can also provide software or hardware upgrades, and bill the whole thing to a valid sounding but fake name and credit card number.

I was disappointed when they called. I had heard of the scam beforehand and would have loved to spent as long as possible wasting their time but had someone to be. 🙁 It is amusing because they work from a strict script so none of my questions ever really got answered. The conversation ended after I pointed out this was a scam and that he and I both knew this.

You should ask them if they can help you compile Gentoo.

Had the exact same call a couple of months ago. It’s been discussed before here.

I told them, if they knew there was something wrong with my computer, then surely they know some info about myself and my computer.

The Indian woman kept avioding the questions and just kept telling me to go to my computer. After about 2 mins of pushing her, she hung up.