Weird phone call! "online pc doctor" - Only thread on these scam calls please

ART6 · 18-01-2011 6:08pm

If the posts on this thread are anything to go by this is a major threat that could easily be defrauding a large number of people. I would think it shouldn't be beyond the imagination to track them down wherever they are and bang them up for a long time. I wonder if anyone like Interpol are hunting them? If they're not then they should be!

cute_cow · 18-01-2011 6:17pm

I get at least 2 or 3 calls from these guys daily, normally say hang on, and leave the phone down for a bit and when I go back they are gone.
One was particularly nasty today asking very peronsal questions.
Numbers are mostly private, but some are coming up as 00023456789, 001111, 001100, 00441213, 00111111, 001234567890.

Am getting so fecked up with it all, I am thinking of changing my number, I have told them I don't have a PC or laptop, have told them I don't have windows. nothing gets through to this b******s.

HELP!!!!

Peter Henderson · 18-01-2011 8:46pm

Captain Havoc wrote: »

I'd say it's a couple of guys but there could be a few of these operations going. As previously said, not everyone is computer savy and if they got lucky once a day, €500 a week in India would go a long way.

The call centre that spoke to me appeared to have dozens of people, not just 2 guys (I could hear them in the background)

I think this whole thing is a massive operation.

jack presley · 18-01-2011 10:22pm

Peter Henderson wrote: »

I think this whole thing is a massive operation.

I agree, it's definitely more than 1 or 2 lads chancing their arm. The sad thing is that if they get 1 victim out of the 500 calls or so they make a day (which they no doubt do), it's probably worth their while

Moon54 · 18-01-2011 10:29pm

Yeah, they blitzed our local area recently. We did up a post about it here;
http://www.thurles.info/2010/11/29/beware-cold-calling-by-telephone/

Knine · 19-01-2011 1:00pm

So this is how the phone call goes......:D

Indian Dude -Hello is that Mary?

Me - Yeah Mary here, who am I speaking to?

Indian Dude - John Smith (indian version of Joe Bloggs me thinks)

Indian Dude - Is your computer switched on?

Me - How do I do that?

Indian Dude aka John Smith proceeds to tell me how to turn on computer and what the google icon looks like

Me- hang on I can't find google, Ive got blonde hair.

Indian Dude is getting a bit irrate. Asks me to type in Logmein123.

Me- I can't find that, hang on something else has popped up, I spell out the link to this thread.

Indian Dude- Are you joking with me?

Me - No my hair is still blonde

Indian Dude- After 12 tonight your computer is going to crash out

Lukes_Mama · 19-01-2011 5:51pm

My nan got this call a while back, the poor woman is nearly 80. "What about my windows? Oh dont be stupid I dont have a computer" and she hung up lol

Binxy · 20-01-2011 3:39pm

Got a call in november about this and couldn't really understand what they guy was saying and was just on my way out, told him i didn't have time for it and hung up. Just got another call today sounded exactly the same as what the guy in november told me and I got a new laptop two weeks ago so I started questioning him about it, which he didn't seem too impressed with and told me he'd put me on to his manager who started telling me to do the same thing.
I told him there are a few laptops in my house how did they know it was this one and he said it was effecting all windows laptops and they were running a check on them all. I decided I'd go along with it to see what they were trying to do. He told me to go to run type in 'inf' and a folder opened, he told me that it should be empty asked what I saw I told him a bunch of folders, he asked how many I said about a thousand (there were 1,190) he said "eleven hundred, these are all downloaded from websites you visit and are hackers that could stop your laptop from working at any minute, but don't worry we can help you" told me to go back to the run box and type in www.logmein123 I stopped then and asked what company he said he was from and he said microsoft and asked me to continue so that one of his technicians could help me, I told him I was hanging up i couldn't trust him and wasn't going to let them have access to my laptop and put down the phone.

Seemed like a scam so i came on here to check if there was anything about it, looks like i was right

No doubt I'll get another call in a few months...:rolleyes:

kearneybobs · 20-01-2011 4:13pm

Just got a call there. Hasn't called in a few months now. My brother, who has been out of the country for a while and has been around when they do ring, he hadnt got a clue what to do so he handed the phone to me. I got the phone and just told him I run Linux. He hung up.

Had to warn the bro about never doing what these guys tell you to do. Microsoft will never call you up and do this kind of thing over the phone

Komplett-Tech: Ryan · 20-01-2011 4:30pm

Oh i'd love a call from these guys. How are these people getting your numbers? Not once in the the last 15 or so years ive had a mobile phone have i ever had a sales or scam phone call. I feel really left out

dathi1 · 20-01-2011 6:27pm

Just got 2 calls today and 2 yesterday to my parents house in south Dublin.

Its definitely a massive operation. I'd say they're cleaning up. Imagine the amount of ill informed non tech people out there going for this.

Eircom should be on to this massive fraud and sort it with interpol or whomever.

cornbb · 20-01-2011 7:12pm

Komplett-Tech: Ryan wrote: »

Oh i'd love a call from these guys. How are these people getting your numbers? Not once in the the last 15 or so years ive had a mobile phone have i ever had a sales or scam phone call. I feel really left out

I'd like to know that actually. FWIW they called me on my UPC landline that is only a couple of months old, I've never given the number out anywhere. Its possible they're just randomly trying numbers in a given range for a known area code.

I really hope they call back. Last time I wasted 20 minutes of their time before telling them I was using a Mac. Next time I'm gonna insist that I've detected a virus on HIS computer and he needs to pay me €150 to fix it :pac:

On a serious note, there's real evidence that this type of thing is on the rise and is becoming a preferred activity for cybercriminals. Read the section on trust exploitation: http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=10471

Phoenix Park · 20-01-2011 7:18pm

I must admit if you get a call when you are at home and bored it can be great fun. I had one about 2 months ago but hadn't heard about the scam at the time so i just hung up, however i'd be delighted to receive another from these feckers some lazy Saturday afternoon and just talk and talk and talk and talk...

Mc Love · 20-01-2011 8:46pm

By answering the call, is there anyway you can get charged for it? I have heard of this happening before.

I never get these calls, it would be such a laugh to lead them and then f*** them out of it

jack presley · 20-01-2011 9:52pm

What's the biggest insult you can give to someone from India? If it was a couple of skangers you could say "Your ma" or something so I'd love to know the Indian equivalent.

Eircom_Sucks · 20-01-2011 11:44pm

my partners mother got caught out by these scammers today , saying she had a virus and they gave an address 49/50 dame street , with a 1212 number , she's 64 and not computer literate so just assumed they were legit , she gave them her credit number and they took €140 + vat , i feel so bad for her as she doesnt see the bad in anybody , she did get some info off them , apparently there company is called grey bites , now i rang the bank credit card department and they said the marchant is called digital river and there apparently based in Luxemburg well thats what the bank said.

is there anyway i can notify them about this ( the merchant ) and also email grey bytes who are based in kolkata which is in india.

she willingly gave out her details , doesnt mean its right , so the bank said its not fraud , i mean WTF do we pay these clowns insurance for ???

any help much appreciated

dathi1 · 21-01-2011 12:06pm

Yep definitely from India. They called again and I just played the Pakistani national down the phone and it really pissed him off. For your own copy just in case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W9liEq--Xw

dublinbusdude · 21-01-2011 12:57pm

I got a call there on the house phone and told them I got rid of the PC and went dead

- I'm thinking we should get them blocked from Ireland and how the f*** they get our phone numbers???

BeepBeep67 · 21-01-2011 12:58pm

Had a call this morning.
Got him to spend about 5mins answering my questions while he kept trying to repeat from his script 'you know the way you get an error message on your PC and you click send or don't send'.
He (Sam Wilson) hung up when I asked him to read out their data privacy policy

.

dublinbusdude · 21-01-2011 1:03pm

Jez they are up to something here

spoonface · 21-01-2011 1:05pm

jack presley wrote: »

What's the biggest insult you can give to someone from India? If it was a couple of skangers you could say "Your ma" or something so I'd love to know the Indian equivalent.

The preferred insult in India is 'sister ****er'. He won't like that one bit.

dublinbusdude · 21-01-2011 1:06pm

I said that

Snowbat · 21-01-2011 9:37pm

Eircom_Sucks wrote: »

apparently there company is called grey bites , now i rang the bank credit card department and they said the marchant is called digital river and there apparently based in Luxemburg well thats what the bank said.

is there anyway i can notify them about this ( the merchant ) and also email grey bytes who are based in kolkata which is in india.

This appears to be the GreyBytes you're looking for - they use esellerate.net (Digital River) as their payment processor. There's a Dublin phone number on their front page.

jack presley · 22-01-2011 12:06pm

Eircom_Sucks wrote: »

, she gave them her credit number and they took €140 + vat ,

€140 is probably more than a week's salary for the average Indian so if they rang 1,000 people and got abuse or strung along from people like us who know what they're up to but still got that one hit, I'd say they'd consider that a successful day.

Micilin Muc · 22-01-2011 12:09pm

Received the phone call today, just hung up after she introduced herself.

I previously believed this scan was limited to eircom customers but I'm with UPC.

james098 · 22-01-2011 2:25pm

Has anyone heard of www.showmypc.com I was daft enough to go that far with one of these guys on the phone and he directed me to this website but when I opened this site and it showed a message saying "share my password" I told him no way !!!!!... Now Im worried Ive let them in anyway by goin that far, I have changed my password on my computer the second I hung up the phone....Any ideas guys ???????

robinph · 22-01-2011 2:40pm

Phoenix Park wrote: »

I must admit if you get a call when you are at home and bored it can be great fun. I had one about 2 months ago but hadn't heard about the scam at the time so i just hung up, however i'd be delighted to receive another from these feckers some lazy Saturday afternoon and just talk and talk and talk and talk...

We usually get a call from a similar bunch of scammers about once a month. Either just put the phone down on them once we realise who they are, but we do get business calls from India and such. But if it's a quiet day we may chat with them for a while. I've had arguments with one of them who acused me of liing about running Linux, I was actually making a cup of coffee at the time. Another call to a colleague resulting in him getting asked if he wanted to marry the scammer woman that was calling up. Every thing she asked him to do on the PC he just started asking her what her real name was, her date of birth, what school she went to, passport number.

Got a good 10 minutes entertainment out of it, and the scammer was happily playing along I think, was probably just happy to have a different type of conversation.

ART6 · 22-01-2011 6:48pm

james098 wrote: »

Has anyone heard of www.showmypc.com I was daft enough to go that far with one of these guys on the phone and he directed me to this website but when I opened this site and it showed a message saying "share my password" I told him no way !!!!!... Now Im worried Ive let them in anyway by goin that far, I have changed my password on my computer the second I hung up the phone....Any ideas guys ???????

I think a web site entitled "showmypc" might arouse a little suspicion!

james098 · 22-01-2011 10:08pm

ART6 wrote: »

I think a web site entitled "showmypc" might arouse a little suspicion!

It did thats why Im asking the question not all of us are that in the know hence ask people advice not smart comments there are threads for that kk

dublinbusdude · 22-01-2011 11:26pm

No weird calls today even my Mam said we didnt, so they got the message!!!

Cionn · 22-01-2011 11:49pm

ART6 wrote: »

I think a web site entitled "showmypc" might arouse a little suspicion!

Keep on topic and if you can be helpful why post. there are people of all technical abilities out there.

C

jack presley · 23-01-2011 10:15am

dublinbusdude wrote: »

No weird calls today even my Mam said we didnt, so they got the message!!!

They'll be back......

patentseven · 23-01-2011 12:45pm

Have a look at http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1362347 - SurfMonkey from Sydney has a real interesting post on this
subject. He posted it Dec. last.

ART6 · 23-01-2011 1:48pm

james098 wrote: »

It did thats why Im asking the question not all of us are that in the know hence ask people advice not smart comments there are threads for that kk

I wasn't trying to be smart since it was obvious that the site name had aroused your suspicions too. If you took my comment in the way you seem to have had then I apologise. It wasn't my intention.

I just couldn't understand why a scammer (if that's what they are) would ever use such a site name since, given the publicity about Internet scams, it would hardly inspire confidence.

robinph · 23-01-2011 2:33pm

ART6 wrote: »

I just couldn't understand why a scammer (if that's what they are) would ever use such a site name since, given the publicity about Internet scams, it would hardly inspire confidence.

The publicity is only relevant to those of us that know about such things anyway, to their targets one website name is much the same as another and al just as confusing...unless the URL was "Imabouttostealyourcreditcardnumbers.com" or similar then they wouldn't notice.

Any publicity about internet scams on the news will just float over the heads of most of the people that get caught by them.

analogue_070 · 24-01-2011 3:53pm

Got another call this morning. Are these guys thick? They have already got money from me, and 'guaranteed' my immunity from their fake viruses for four years or something. Now I admit I was stupid to be taken in the first time, but I'm really not that stupid that they can con me time and time again. Anyhow, I used a few expletives, beginning wtth the letter 'f' and followed by 'off'.

matildda · 26-01-2011 9:50pm

Is it possible the information these scammers have is from internet providers? Three households in locality got calls today and all fairly new customers to the national broadband provider Three.

themonboys · 26-01-2011 11:18pm

Anyone know how to actually stop them from calling? They never get far with me but it's no fun stringing them along anymore.

I'm thinking I'll just have to speak in Irish from now on, "“Ciúnas bóthar cailín bainne”

Antigone05 · 26-01-2011 11:19pm

i got another call from these guys today. first time was about 4 months ago.

told him to stop calling me and have forwarded his ip onto the cyber police

juan iberia · 27-01-2011 1:38am

I'm in Dublin ... Got another call yesterday (Weds) ... first call was about two months ago ... today I kept "john" on the phone for about ten minutes by playing dumb, saying I was having trouble starting up my computer etc ... I kept asking him to hold on for a minute while I checked plugs etc ... at one point I asked how someone who was called John had such poor English and a heavy Indian accent ... he denied he was calling from India ... said he was in Sydney ... I asked for his supervisor .... he came on and was quite aggressive ... I asked why he was degrading the image of India by running a scam like this ... this was his answer : "because enough stupid people like you answer us" ... nice guy ... I told him I was on a day off and was happy to talk to him all day, since he was paying ... he hung up ...

caomhino · 27-01-2011 11:37am

My sister just got scammed by this shower. paid €96 for the privilege, did anyone ever get their money back of these or is it just a case of a dear lesson in phone scams ?

Gadgetman496 · 27-01-2011 11:43am

caomhino wrote: »

My sister just got scammed by this shower. paid €96 for the privilege, did anyone ever get their money back of these or is it just a case of a dear lesson in phone scams ?

My understanding of this SCAM is that while it is morally wrong it's technically not illegal, so I'm afraid it is "a case of a dear lesson in phone scams" unfortunately.

-

Dermot Illogical · 27-01-2011 11:44am

WARNING: These scammers are now resorting to causing damage (by deleting system files) if credit card details are not handed over and they have been already been granted remote access.

Dermot Illogical · 27-01-2011 11:46am

caomhino wrote: »

My sister just got scammed by this shower. paid €96 for the privilege, did anyone ever get their money back of these or is it just a case of a dear lesson in phone scams ?

It's going to cost more than that. They have full access to her computer anytime it's connected to the internet, so she'll have to factor in the cost of repairing it too.

caomhino · 27-01-2011 11:50am

Lovely, is there a software client they've installed that i need to remove ?

caomhino · 27-01-2011 11:52am

caomhino wrote: »

Lovely, is there a software client they've installed that i need to remove ?

i'm assuming they just cold called here and she was gullible to hand over her info ?

Psychobabble · 27-01-2011 11:59am

I'd a call from one of these guys last week. 'Daniel' had a very strong Indian accent and claimed that my computer was being hacked. Now I'm not terribly computer literate, but I smelled a rat and asked him where he was based; when he replied Dublin, I asked him for his number so I could phone him back, obviously it was a fake one.
I contacted UPC, as I was a bit disconcerted and wanted to check that there was no way these guys could gain access to my PC, I was told by a very helpful tech guy that this is a common scam and that they use Eircoms online international directory to call numbers at random. He offered to make my number ex-directory online, but to still appear in the phonebook (there's probably nothing to stop these people from getting a hard copy).
I also contacted COMREG, who are also well aware of the scam (which apparently is legal in the country out of which they operate), however, I was told that the Garda Fraud Squad were investigating this.
So if anyone does have solid information that they can pass on to the Fraud Squad, please do so. In the meantime, I suppose the best defence against this sort of thing is to tell as many people as you can about it, which is exactly what I have done!

Dermot Illogical · 27-01-2011 12:05pm

caomhino wrote: »

Lovely, is there a software client they've installed that i need to remove ?

They use logmein initially, but once they've gained access they can install any other backdoors they want. They only safe way to deal with it is to disconnect from the internet, back up files and reinstall the operating system.
It is possible to repair, but it's very time-consuming and involves switching off system restore, analysis of running processes and network traffic.

caomhino · 27-01-2011 12:20pm

cheers RT66, i'll check her laptop this evening, will try and remove or disable that logmein i'm fnot fully au fait with all this stuff but could i not just get down microsoft security essentials and check it that way or will that not detect it ?

Dermot Illogical · 27-01-2011 1:59pm

caomhino wrote: »

cheers RT66, i'll check her laptop this evening, will try and remove or disable that logmein i'm fnot fully au fait with all this stuff but could i not just get down microsoft security essentials and check it that way or will that not detect it ?

The problem is that they aren't using malware, so scanning won't detect anything amiss. You'll need to check all the files on the system (including system files) to see what has been modified in the period they've had access. Set the PC to show all system and hidden files, search for *, and order by date modified (and date created just to be certain). You'll need to disable system restore, disable remote access, check user accounts, check running processes and run wireshark or similar to see if the PC is in contact with any machines in Calcutta.
A reinstall is easier and quicker to be honest, and it allows you to fully trust the PC again.

Weird phone call! "online pc doctor" - Only thread on these scam calls please

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