Supreme scam £1000 stolen from account

heronb

This may be a well known scam but thought I’d share my experience.

Edit .. the title should read Supremo.

A little bit of background first my father is elderly and when stressed can stumble with his memory.

My father has been scammed for over £1000 and it could’ve been much more. He received a pop up from ‘Microsoft’ (it wasn’t Microsoft) on his laptop that there was a virus on his computer and asked to down load a program called Supremo, this is a screen sharing program and allowed hackers to see and control his computer screen. They then persuaded him to access his online banking to make a payment to Microsoft (again it wasn’t Microsoft), then they transferred a large amount from an ISA into his current account to make it more accessible. Then they made a chaps payment to a Bank of America acc. Over £1000.
Thankfully he smelled a rat and cut short the call, but it was too late at this stage and the transaction had been processed. He contacted his bank and reported the scam but struggled to explain the situation to his bank as he was so distressed. Thankfully they locked his acc and he called me. He still can’t explain what happened, he is angry at himself and totally downtrodden because of this.

So please beware of Supremo or any screen sharing software on your PC.


Thanks

[Deleted User]

Old new.

These scams have been around for years, the same as when "Microsoft" call you about a virus on your PC

Terry_Towelling

Thanks for the warning. To aid my understanding of these things, can anyone explain to me how a 'pop-up' can be made to appear on your PC? Do you have to already be on a website that is likely to be hosted by scammers or are there other ways?

PRAISETHESUN

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

Thanks for the warning. To aid my understanding of these things, can anyone explain to me how a 'pop-up' can be made to appear on your PC? Do you have to already be on a website that is likely to be hosted by scammers or are there other ways?

Usually it's visiting dodgy websites or downloading things from untrusted sources that gets malware installed on a PC, which can then force pop ups such as the ones described.

Terry_Towelling

PRAISETHESUN wrote: »

Usually it's visiting dodgy websites or downloading things from untrusted sources that gets malware installed on a PC, which can then force pop ups such as the ones described.

Thanks. That was kind of my understanding but the way OP presented the information suggested the pop-up came out of nowhere. I suppose because OP's father couldn't fully explain what happened, perhaps there had been a preceding scam phone call or website hit.

karlie88

Sorry to hear your story OP. I guess you can be grateful that it was 'only' £1000 and that it could have been a lot worse.

There's a chap on YouTube called Jim Browning who uploads videos of scammers and how they operate.

In most cases, the scammer will use remote desktop software to see the other person's screen (like Supremo, other examples are Team viewer and Event viewer) and guide them to send money across.

I've watched all his videos as they're highly educational and quite shocking at the same time. He sometimes poses as a vulnerable user and accesses the scammers' PCs and views their files (again videos on this on his YT account). He reports the scammers to the authorities (both in the UK and the scammer's local country). He also sometimes phones up the victim to stop a transfer taking place.

The most eye-opening video I've seen is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo5JdX-CzoY

The scammer has already accessed the victim's PC using remote desktop software and has convinced the victim to log in to his Santander account...the rest of the video is self-explanatory.

Not all heroes wear capes.

heronb

I used the Jim Browning videos last week to try and work out what happened, they are very informative.

There’s one vid that shows how the company that produced Supremo operate.

Sun-Is-Fun

karlie88 wrote: »

Sorry to hear your story OP. I guess you can be grateful that it was 'only' £1000 and that it could have been a lot worse.

There's a chap on YouTube called Jim Browning who uploads videos of scammers and how they operate.

In most cases, the scammer will use remote desktop software to see the other person's screen (like Supremo, other examples are Team viewer and Event viewer) and guide them to send money across.

I've watched all his videos as they're highly educational and quite shocking at the same time. He sometimes poses as a vulnerable user and accesses the scammers' PCs and views their files (again videos on this on his YT account). He reports the scammers to the authorities (both in the UK and the scammer's local country). He also sometimes phones up the victim to stop a transfer taking place.

The most eye-opening video I've seen is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo5JdX-CzoY

The scammer has already accessed the victim's PC using remote desktop software and has convinced the victim to log in to his Santander account...the rest of the video is self-explanatory.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Thanks for that link - spent hours watching all his videos ! Very informative and he is so good !

Nasqueron

karlie88 wrote: »

Sorry to hear your story OP. I guess you can be grateful that it was 'only' £1000 and that it could have been a lot worse.

There's a chap on YouTube called Jim Browning who uploads videos of scammers and how they operate.

In most cases, the scammer will use remote desktop software to see the other person's screen (like Supremo, other examples are Team viewer and Event viewer) and guide them to send money across.

I've watched all his videos as they're highly educational and quite shocking at the same time. He sometimes poses as a vulnerable user and accesses the scammers' PCs and views their files (again videos on this on his YT account). He reports the scammers to the authorities (both in the UK and the scammer's local country). He also sometimes phones up the victim to stop a transfer taking place.

The most eye-opening video I've seen is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo5JdX-CzoY

The scammer has already accessed the victim's PC using remote desktop software and has convinced the victim to log in to his Santander account...the rest of the video is self-explanatory.

Not all heroes wear capes.

There are some good ones from people hitting back, one guy pretends to be really dumb and uploads Wannacry (nasty PC disabling software) onto the scammer PC


There's another brilliant one from a guy who was called by scammers and he wrote a phone bomb software package that called them 18 times a second and played a recorded message calling them scammers from a source they couldn't block. They changed their number after 3 days and so he targeted the new one (I saw that on Facebook so might not be on youtube)

arielsmelody

Apologies if you've already thought of this, but your dad is probably on a scammer's list now, so it would be a good idea to organise call blocking for him so that they can't get through to him by phone.

AndyPix

heronb wrote: »

So please beware of Supremo or any screen sharing software on your PC.

The golden rule here is NEVER download ANYTHING onto your computer on the say so of a stranger on the phone.


As to the question as how this message got onto the computer, they are just specially crafted popups that make themselves difficult to close. No malware has to be present, they normally hide out on less than savoury web sites or web sites that are offering something for nothing like watching the latest movie for free for example.