My Computer Is Broken...

[Andy™]

just had a call from some wonderful person from my ISP telling me my computer is broken and needs fixed, and to do so i need to go online and allow her access to my PC via teamviewer

anyway, she gave up with the call after 4 minutes and 32 seconds of me being more dumb with computers than Sandra...

 

[Marvo]

This must be an international syndicated scam. It was prevalent here in SA not too long ago and most of the people falling for it were old people and kids who got convinced by the scammer to install a remote access application.

 

[Andy™]

sounds about right - my grandma had a simliar call a few weeks ago - she knew what it was stright away, so she went along with it for a little before remembering she didnt have a computer

unfortunately though, i can imaging many people just doing what they say

 

[OnOff]

I had a similar call from someone from the "sub continent" with a name like Nigel or Brian etc, typical Indian names I believe! Anyway, he opened by saying he was from my "Broadband Provider!. I let him rattle on then said "So who is my provider then?". "Erm...............AOL?", came the reply. "WRONG ANSWER TO$$ER!". Gotta love a tryer though.

 

[Marvo]

The low lifes I heard about pretended they had received a Windows system report that had been sent to Microsoft and the computer needed a patch to be applied. Maybe there's several excuses they use but it's certainly a clever one getting people to do the dirty work that usually gets left to trojans.

 

[ProDave]

If I'm being polite, I just say I have an Apple, not a PC. If I'm not feeling polite, I either just hang up, or put the phone down on the desk and walk away leaving them talking to themselves.

 

[steptoe]

Im fairly sure I posted about the guy I had on the phone for ages,

I was bored and having a beer so just went along,

he kept trying to explain to me I had to click the windows icon,

finally after about half an hour it musta been I asked him if he meant the UBUNTU logo in the top right, and not the windows icon in the bottom left,

the line went dead.

:slap

thats half an hour of his life he will never get back again!

 

[Marvo]

I wonder what their success rate would be, it's probably still worth their while even if only one in a few hundred fall for it.

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

I had the windows security call a few weeks back. I could see it was a Pakistan phone number and an indian guy told me his name was Eric. I managed to fool him around for 20 min before he hung up.

If anyone is not aware, most times they talk you through installing Logmein or similar programs where they can return and take full access of your computer so any card numbers, banking, paypal, your phone book, e mail contacts etc they can see. They also change passwords so you cant get back in yourself

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

Loads of scamming the scammers on Youtube, here's how they operate though

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1juMnpSv82c?feature=oembed

 

[Evans Electric]

They seemed to target our number for about 3 months , Indian guys with Christian names , all calling from Windows to tell me my computer was at risk . I told one guy I don't have a computer and he said " Yes we know that but its still at risk" !!!

It seems to have died away now , I presume they realised they were dealing with a computer wizard . Or not .