Scam or what?

Had one and when he said he was from Microsoft we need to sort out your PC…

I said, “but I can’t understand that as I don’t own a PC”, that stumped him…

I agree entirley with you Chas. But God help the next call, should there be one, I now have my old Police Whistle next to the phone, I’ll give the sods some ear ache.:D
Jim.
Lincoln .7

The truth I suspect is that there is little or no information about us which is not legally or illegally available to those with the wherewithal to obtain it.

There is probably nothing to stop ‘scammers’ buying the sort of information that legitimate companies buy to better target their cold-calls; I bought an extra piece of car insurance over the internet recently and since then my mobile number has been bombarded with texts informing me (correctly) that I was recently involved in a road accident and that I could sue for damages if I had been injured…

…the funny thing is, I never give out my mobile number when I buy stuff!

Ah so no visual display. Well worth the negligible cost of such a receiver.

Yes that was my thought that the thread has rather wandered away, as is normal practice, from the OP’s point and the apparent seriousness of it. Hence my original comment.

I don’t have any means, on my landline, of knowing who is calling before I pick up the phone, usually callers get about five seconds to identify themselves to my satisfaction or I hang-up; I waste the time of the ‘Microsoft’ scam calls purely as a public service (and to satisfy the evil side of my split-personality)!

One interesting thing about the call in the original post; the scammer knew Jim’s name, surname, e-mail address and telephone number! That sounds a bit more serious than the random ‘Microsoft’ calls that don’t even know your name usually and are just ringing random UK numbers in the hope they get somebody with a PC on the line.

All interesting stuff, I am sure, but I still haven’t read anything which would persuade me of the merits of answering the call let alone wasting time on it, if I did.:)

…the poor sods on the other end are only trying to scrape a living. I’m sure they would rather be doing something more honest, but they have children to feed and needs must.

Blimey, you’re in a good mood this morning! 🙂

Sorry, but I can’t agree; the ‘poor sods’ could as easily be stealing millions of pounds as part of a commercial scale organised-crime operation and inflicting totally unnecessary suffering on completely innocent victims…

…and I doubt many of us are insured against this sort of cyber-crime?

I don’t waste too much time on these calls. I have enough to do and the poor sods on the other end are only trying to scrape a living. I’m sure they would rather be doing something more honest, but they have children to feed and needs must. I can’t recall what it was I did, but I did once earn a single word epithet from a female asian ‘lady’ that implied I had had relations with my female parent.

However my pet irritation is when I am talking to someone legitimate and as security they ask me to ‘confirm my address’. I agree and then wait. After some moment they will say.. “Well what is the address” and I point out that for me to ‘confirm’ it, they will have to read it out to me first.

A small piece of pedantry.. but hey.

Moggy

I had a funny conversation with tiscali some years ago,the chap rang me and was checking to see if I could be on a better deal (funny thing is I think he was genuine LOL) and we had a few minutes of light hearted conversation – then he started to ask me the security questions – which of course I refused to answer since he could not prove to me that he was a genuine caller : ) – he was banging his head on the wall by the end of the call LOL,I just said to send me an email or letter with the better offer – never got one : )

The one people tend to fall for is the “I’m calling from Microsoft, your windows pc has a virus let me fix it for you.”
People don’t take the simple step of observing that almost all homes have a windows pc so are impressed that “Microsoft” “know” that they have one in the home. :rolleyes:

When they call me with that scam I just ask…Which IP address is infected.
The don’t know what to say.
I repeat that I have two computers…WHICH ONE are you calling about?

They have no idea what I’m talking about. Idiots.

I say SOCO to these people when they ask for me. Now your average Indian does not know what that means and asks again. I then say “Avon and Somerset Police Scenes of Crime and I don’t think you will be talking to that person in the future, who are you?” The line never fails to clear PDQ!

Honestly, I hate these filthy scumbag scammers; they prey on honest, trusting, and often elderly people, if our local news is to be believed, and I have absolutely no qualms about wasting as much of their telephone-time as I can!

The scammer’s goal is to talk you through steps on your computer that will give them control so, presumably, they can add software that can access your online banking passwords, if you use online banking, and then empty your accounts. The strange thing is that when they’ve rung me they assume that I’m answering the phone sitting in front of my PC, which is running, all ready for me to follow their guidance right into their trap; is that what they think people in Britain do all day?

As it happens every time they’ve rung me they’ve got my ‘home’ number and not the other line I use to work from home, and the one that sits by the PC. They them immediately wanted to start giving me instructions for the PC and actually seemed quite annoyed when I said it was in another room and wasn’t actually switched-on…

…this was my cue for ‘bumbling’ back and fourth (actually I made a cup of tea), leaving them on hold for endless minutes, asking for instructions to be repeated, arguing about the (imaginary) results their instructions produced on my PC, feigning deafness, suffering an imaginary power-cut and asking him to hold, twice, while I answered the door (it was the imaginary postman and the imaginary company who were waxing my imaginary Aston Martin)!

Working in one of these scam call-centres and trying to guide people through the steps they need to load their software onto your PC must be stressful enough for them, but when I eventually told him, after much pantomime confusion, that my PC hadn’t ever been connected to the internet I thought he was going to have an aneurysm!

Warren, re your 14. And there was I thinking butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth,

You little tinker you. Bit of a “Dark Horse” Eh?.:D
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Charlie,

I think that your suspicions are justified. OfCom is a gummy pussycat. However, the scammers just might not know that !

I’ve had a few of the ‘Microsoft Windows’ calls and when it’s been convenient I’ve tried to waste as much of their time as possible:

Pretend not to be you and ask them to explain what the call is about, pretend you’re writing it all down and ask them to keep repeating things, then go and get ‘yourself’ (taking a long, long time)! If they are still there ask what it is about again (say you can’t read the writing on the message taken earlier)…

…after that just have fun with it; adopt an accent (my brother-in-law adopts a thicker and thicker Welsh accent and adds in more and more Welsh words as he gets progressively more angry until he is just shouting in Welsh but using lots of internationally recognised swearing)…

…if they are still with you at this point, bearing in mind that they are trying to talk you through steps on your computer, pretend there is somebody at the door and ask them to hold while you get it, or to ring you back…

…at which point revert to your original personality and berate them for ringing again when you’ve already passed their message on!

I’ve actually had one of these scammers ring me back, twice, just to abuse me after he guessed what I was doing; unfortunately for him his command of English didn’t extend to any really bad language…

…unlike the state-of-the-art profanity heading in the opposite direction! 🙂

My brother, who is an IT consultant had a similar call, so decided to take them for a bit of a ride.

There’s one or two good videos on Youtube of people winding up these scammers.

I like this one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPutRD_UZmk

My brother, who is an IT consultant had a similar call, so decided to take them for a bit of a ride. As the ‘friend’ took him through the stages on his ‘PC’ that would have allowed remote access to his machine, he sounded gullible enough, until the guy asked him to click on ‘start’, at which point my brother said, ‘but I don’t have ‘start’ at the bottom left of my machine, it’s a Mac’, the scammer twigged and put the phone down. As my brother said, that was 5 mins he wasn’t potentially scamming someone else.

The one people tend to fall for is the “I’m calling from Microsoft, your windows pc has a virus let me fix it for you.”
People don’t take the simple step of observing that almost all homes have a windows pc so are impressed that “Microsoft” “know” that they have one in the home. :rolleyes:

That’s a new one on me Chas, I have never heard of that form of Scam. Just shows how modern technology has advanced with the introduction of the tinternet, and a very astute mind when it comes to being an expert on a computer.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Whether it is true or not it still pays to err on the side of caution and nothing is lost in not answering the call.