Microsoft Imposters (via phone)

Speedhaak

Apologies if this is in the wrong area, but I just wanted to give people a heads up. I received a phone call today from a chap claiming tp be a representative of Microsoft, and that my PC had been infected with several viruses. Long story short the aim of the game was for him to get remote access to my PC and 'pretend' to clean viruses ect, at a cost.

I took down the dummy address and info I asked him for as I knew from the off it was a scam. The info is:

Website he provided: livehelpforpc.com
Physical address: 79 Clinton street Galway
Phone Number: (I rang this, no answer) 353 91442060

Just be careful if anyone rings with regards to an issue like this, and if you live with other people or your family inform them of the scam to avoid being defrauded.

Article relating to matter: http://www.techeye.net/security/microsoft-scam-comes-to-a-phone-near-you

Again, sorry if this is the wrong area or if its been posted before, just wanted to inform people.

KoolKid

Been posted & discussed many times across different forums.
In case anyone is still in doubt.
Microsoft do not ring people offering to fix their computer:)

Speedhaak

Yeah sorry, had a felling it may have been posted.

KoolKid

Nothing to apologize for. The more attention brought upon these scammers the better as far as Im concerned.

dlofnep

A friend of mine was hit by this scam. I put in an hour's research, and passed their photographs, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, facebook profiles and activities along to the Kolkata Police.

They should be all jailed.

Annuv

A relation of mine experienced this recently, and the "Microsoft" guy kept referring to her by a name that was slightly misspelt version of her real name.

The only time that her name as ever misspelt like that before was when she placing an order for a Dell laptop years ago, she typed an extra character by accident.

From reading online, it appears that Dells customer list was made available to these pr|cks sometime

humaxf1

I recall reading on a message board (possibly boards.ie) the OP receives a call (can't quite recall if it was from MS or not). Anyhow, the caller proceeded to give his speech about we have reason to believe your windows xp/vista is heavily infected with virus/spyware yada yada yada

He offers to take remote control, fix the infections and of course at a price. The reply he got was "Oh, I'm infected??? How can that be? I have Ubuntu installed"

The caller hung up LOL. The unfortunate reality is, some people will fall for it. While this "chancer" is accessing your PC remotely, God knows what malicious SW is being loaded such as key loggers and whatever else!

gmb

humaxf1 wrote: »

I recall reading on a message board (possibly boards.ie) the OP receives a call (can't quite recall if it was from MS or not). Anyhow, the caller proceeded to give his speech about we have reason to believe your windows xp/vista is heavily infected with virus/spyware yada yada yada

I just got a similar call from a guy who sounded Asian with a number shown as "Out of Area". He started to tell me that lots of people in my area are suffering from PC corruption from downloads.

I explained that I know he a scammer and that I work in IT security myself and asked where he got my contact number from then the phone went dead.

Beware !!

Dude111

koolkid wrote:

Nothing to apologize for. The more attention brought upon these scammers the better as far as Im concerned.

Yes.....

Maybe we should have a STICKY THREAD on this base warning people of this!

oldyouth

My wife got the call today, Wexford area. Lady with Indian accent, saying she was calling from the UK. Wouldn't leave number but said she would ring back Tuesday, hopefully when I'm here

dlofnep

Record it if you can. String her along for as long as possible. For every minute she's on the phone to you, she's losing potential scams