Scam "Ringing from Microsoft about your errors"

JJ_Egan

Thats the only way to get back at them act dumb and lead them up the garden path .

prowla

enfield_freddy wrote: »

I wonder if Margaret Thatchers mother was proud of what her daughter did to working people , many years ago ,

Probably, like letting them buy their council houses.

prowla

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

I. too, like to waste their time. At the end of the last one I asked "Sean" whether his mother knew he was a thief. It obviously touched a nerve and he went mental. For an Indian, he had an in-depth knowledge of swear words.

If you do waste their time, then you are doing their other potential scamees a favour, as it means you're helping stop them catch someone else out!

trotter09

Mentioned this scam to a friend who has had a couple of these calls.

He says to the scammers: "Are you ringing about why it takes my computer such a long time to start up?"

A good starter for ten minutes or so.

youngand

I happened across this thread last week and I've just had one of these calls so I was forewarned (thank you).

A couple of weeks ago my laptop took an age doing a Windows update which was still frustratingly fresh in my memory.

The bloke who rang spoke perfect English and was quite happy to hang on for 20 minutes while I started my computer and said it was doing a Windows update. Rather lost my nerve though and said it's finished the update and is working fine now and I put the phone down.

Next time I'll string it out for longer. Yes, it is fun isn't it!

fatpiggy

I know my elderly neighbour gets these every so often, luckily she is as sharp as a pin. I got my one and only a few weeks ago, clearly from India. I feigned amazement for a minute or so before telling him what was so amazing was that he could see all this despite the fact I don't actually own a computer. Then I asked him if his mother knew she had raised a thief and a fraudster and hung up. It reminded me a bit of the call I had from one of the Utilities who asked to speak to Mr W. There is no Mr W as I'm not married but I told them they were welcome to try a seance, since Mr W, my father has been dead since 2001. The caller made a strangled noise and cut the call off!

Tamsak

Good to hear more people delaying these fraudsters.

My last received call I decided to play along as the naive sucker, just to see what exactly they were trying to do and of course to delay them further.

They seem to have a hierarchy whereby minions put out feelers to see if they can get a bite. When such a naive person is found to be compliant the call is handed over to a more senior person who understands the technical side.

Essentially once in front of your machine they intend to get you to give them remote access by asking you to open a run command box. Within which they ask you to type mstsc before hinting enter. Which brings up the remote access control panel.

At which point i couldn't keep the gig up any longer without giving them what they wanted. So on being asked to follow the next steps i kindly informed them that if they wanted access to my computer that had better knock on my door and ask nicely.

Needless to say after a quick hail of insults thrown my way they hung up the call.

Funtimes

Honey_Bear

Hern wrote: »

As will be apparent from the quality of the 'conversation' and the calibre of the caller, these are desperate individuals living in desperate circumstances in a country where the gulf between rich and poor, and one caste and another, is as great if not greater than in the days of the British Raj. Corruption has for so long been institutionalised in India that it's a fact of life.

Working for the scammers is slightly better than begging in the street; it's not some evil person who's on your phone but an individual who deserves better than to have his / her dignity stripped away by amoral exploiters who frankly couldn't care less how long a target wishes to play silly sods at the end of the phone line because the ultimate loss on that one call is more than made up for by success on another.

As Stevie Palimo rightly says, India's IT scammer elite -- and that includes the phony software companies with fake Canadian addresses -- is beyond the reach of UK Law and, precisely because they are in India, beyond the reach of what passes for Law over there.

Me, I wouldn't tease a beggar in the street. Either give, or walk on by. Having fun with the desperate individuals who, having struggled to learn to English only to find that their achievement entitles them merely to read scammer scripts, honestly doesn't strike me as any kind of entertainment at all.

I've thought a lot about this, Hern, and I'm as liberal as the next person but the reality is - they are thieves. When they are successful they cause the same misery as a burglar does, with the added insult of making the victim feel like a fool for being trusting. Why should the callers be treated with respect and sympathy when their only motive is to bilk the victim. I don't feel any sympathy for anyone who sets out to steal from people, and I have never, ever teased a beggar, which is a desperate way to make a living - but honest.

The added complication is that I now automatically assume any caller with a particular accent is lying to me about the purpose of the call, having had up to a hundred of these calls over 10 years or so. Does that make me racist as well as mean-spirited?

Azari wrote: »

I have considerable sympathy with your viewpoint, but when it comes down to it, these are people who set out each day to go to work knowing that they will be spending their entire working day attempting to cheat people. That's all they are doing. There is no useful purpose to their occupation.

If enough people could waste enough time it would eventually make the operations unprofitable.

This is what I believe, so thank you Azari for saying it.

lincroft1710 wrote: »

Having spoken to literally dozens of these individuals over the years, it is apparent that they are well aware they are scamming and some clearly aren't "desperate".

The last one told me to f*** myself! I pointed out that as I had been scrupulously polite to him when his only intention in ringing me was to steal from me, I thought his swearing at me was entirely inappropriate. He apologised. :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

sleepymans

szam_ wrote: »

Regardless of whether they are desperate or not - they are most likely aware that they are wrongly impersonating a company in order to extract details from vulnerable people and is probable that they know that theft is wrong.

I wouldn't tease a beggar in the street - those are completely different circumstances and I don't think are comparable, I actually have some sympathy for some beggars. But the beggars (or at least most of them) aren't stealing from you - because that's what the difference is, it amounts to theft - it could amount to thousands, if not tens of thousands of pounds, maybe more, stolen right from under your nose.

You seem to be advocating putting the phone down immediately as to spare thieves the, i suppose you could call it, "embarrassment" at not getting anywhere after 30 minutes or an hour, enabling them to therefore move on the next person to try and con in the hope they will get a successful hit - so you're arguably, indirectly approving of them being able to steal from the less tech-savvy or naive people in this country - just so long as it isn't you. I'm not implying that's what you said, but that's how it comes across to me.

If me keeping them on the line for a period of time prevents them from committing the main offense here, law or no law, theft - then I shall do so whilst keeping myself amused doing it, and if it stops just one person from being scammed by this, I'd consider that a job well done. I don't care if they're desperate, being complicit in theft is wrong in my books, end of story.

I agree wholeheartedly and make a point of keeping these scammers on my line for as long as possible. I wont however stoop so low as to swear at them or insult them - it would leave a sour taste in MY mouth rather than theirs!


Lets all waste their time so that the scams become less profitable (vain hope, I guess)

POPPYOSCAR

I actually look forward to receiving these call now.


And yes keep on winding them up everyone, the longer we keep them talking the fewer vunerable people they are able to scam.