The unstoppable "tech support" scam

Is this REALLY a problem?

"The fraudster cold-calls the customer..."

Put the phone down.

By grumpycrabuk on 6 Jul 2010

Of course its a problem...

Many (indeed, the vast majority) of computer users are not savvy guys like you and me, grumpycrabuk.
One of my clients nearly got caught by this exact scam (but a different company)last week. He eventually realised something was wrong and hung up, but they called him back!
I could not nasties left behind, but they had accessed his PC using LogMeIn (rescue, I think).

These are smart people.

By adamgashead on 6 Jul 2010

Meh..

This con relies on ignorance, the sooner details become common knowledge through the papers or TV, the sooner it will die.. or mutate.

Good article though, I should think they'll make a good few hundred thousand before people catch on.. even more if they can gear it up quickly before people get wise.

By pinero50 on 6 Jul 2010

Wrong place for this article

Surely a better place for this article would be in a newspaper like the Sun or the Mirror, or the Mail?

Most people who read PC Pro would instantly recognize this as a scam.

The message needs to be sent out to the masses who aren't tech savy.

By Perfectblue97 on 6 Jul 2010

As much as I deplore the scum that do this, if I was called by them, I would at least have some fun and play dumb.

We have all heard the fake IT support joke where the PC didn't work because of the powercut.

Reply with 'How do I login' or 'Is the keyboard this thing with lots of buttons on it?'

Pretend to have Linux/Mac instead of Windows but don't tell them that.

Tell them to hang on a second, then start to play a game so that they hear you. (I do this with all cold callers)

All of this is hopefully costing them (at least some) money.

By metalmonkey on 6 Jul 2010

A singular mistake?

"for only fractions of a pence per minute"

Which journalism school did you go to?

Pence is the plural (i.e. more than one), penny is the singular! (one or fewer)

By BornOnTheCusp on 6 Jul 2010

@metalmonkey - another good one for this particular call would be to, when they ask you to visit the site, play the noise of a modem trying to connect and failing then point out that because you are on the phone you can't connect to the internet.

By rlsdaveas2000 on 6 Jul 2010

@BornOnTheCusp

Quite right - stupid error corrected.

Barry Collins
Online Editor

By Barry_Collins on 6 Jul 2010

Is this not the sort of thing credit card companies are supposed to prevent -by not providing merchant accounts?
If you do a charge-back on the credit card the merchant is fined for false billing.

By milliganp on 6 Jul 2010

Kota rather than Bombay

According to their domain name registrar GoDaddy, who incidentally also host the site, contact details for TheNerdSupport are

The Nerd Support
+91.9680115111 Phone
280-A, Talwandi
KOTA, Rajasthan 324005
India

see http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=thenerdsu
pport.com&prog_id=godaddy

By thumphrey1 on 6 Jul 2010

Use your head...

Seriously, do people really think corporate giants are going to spend time and money to survey, scan and call you to tell you have a virus? And you know very well if they did, it will cost you.

When you get an unsolicited phone call it means the person on the other end wants your money. Virus scam, Credit Card 'scam', credit card companies... all the same. If you acknowledge them, you deserve what you get. Computer savvy or not.

I think this has more to do with the gullible masses than computers... But that's nothing new.

By bink009 on 6 Jul 2010

Here in the United States

Here in the US and at ZolexPC I haven't seen or heard of customers speaking of the Cold Calling to trick them. They must have enough success without resorting to that method yet. www.zolexpc.com

By ZolexPC on 6 Jul 2010

Here in the United States

Here in the US and at ZolexPC I haven't seen or heard of customers speaking of the Cold Calling to trick them. They must have enough success without resorting to that method yet. www.zolexpc.com

By ZolexPC on 6 Jul 2010

Another pedantic point...

... there is no such dialling code as 0203. The code for London is 020. The 3 is part of the local number.

By john_sn on 6 Jul 2010

For PerfectBlue

You are on to an interesting twist, in asking why this should be covered by PC Pro. The smart part of this scam is that people who are ignorant about their PCs, are very often somewhat ashamed of their ignorance - frequently, I hear some version of "oh I didn't want to bother you with..." when facing a smoking ruin - a two second call would have headed off disaster, but their embarrassment makes it worse. Therefore I fully expect PC Pro readers to only get to this scam too late - and to be a bolshy enough lot to not get far enough into a cold call to discover the scam for themselves.

By Steve_Cassidy on 6 Jul 2010

Bargain hunters in protective aura shocker!

I work in an IT department and am seen as the ‘go to’ guy when folks have probs with their pc’s at home. I’ve had 2 co-workers approach me in recent weeks after being contacted by one of these companies, interesting twist, on both occasions the company claimed that Microsoft had contacted them and told them that the PC was infected. They can of course fix all the problems for around £100.

Both turned down the ‘generous’ offer at this point and came to me. I gave them all the usual advice about virus scanning and updates and what. The thing that made me smile was that both users refused the on-the-spot help not because they recognized it as a scam but because they wanted to check with me if there was a cheaper alternative.

Savvy British ‘tinterweb shoppers ftw ^^

By rozman on 7 Jul 2010

Dave

I've been phoned a couple of times by the "International Computer Centre" - the last time by an Indian called Tony!!!!

By BAKERDAVE on 7 Jul 2010

Conference cal to Local Police

I recommend setting up a conference call to the police whilst they're talking so they can get all the info they need to bust them :-)

By datc42 on 7 Jul 2010

Conference cal to Local Police

I recommend setting up a conference call to the police whilst they're talking so they can get all the info they need to bust them :-)

By datc42 on 7 Jul 2010

A similar scam was tried on me: I played alog

And I wrote it up. It was quite amusing.
For your entertainment:
https://www.srcf.ucam.org/~drt24/blog/2010/06/phon
e-scammers/

By drt24 on 7 Jul 2010

It's still a problem...

I had been unaware of this scam (been busy doing other things..) until I got one of these calls 2 days ago.

I knew instantly what a 'crock of s...' it was but I strung them along while they strung me along.

They claim MS has contacted them, then they get you to check eventvwr to prove that you have 'warnings' and 'errors' which "triggers microsoft to contact them". Then they get you to open a command window and ask you to enter the 'assoc' command. They say the output is ".. a list of junk files that your PC has downloaded from the internet..".

Then they asked me to go to site www.logmein123.com. At this point I ended the call.

Even though I was persistent in telling the guy (an Indian?) he was talking rubbish on all points he was very, very persistent in his efforts.

I immediately emailed family I knew who may fall for this scam. Many of them would suspect, but not be certain, and may have been convinced by the scammers' demonstration of their PC problems.

PC Pro readers (some of whom seem very snobbish in this area) are least likely to get caught out by this but, the best way to reduce this scam problem is national media information coverage.

By diadon on 8 Jul 2010

What's in a name...

The guy (indian?) who called me was called 'Jason Miller'. They (foreign call centers) always use common names from the country to which they are calling.

By diadon on 8 Jul 2010

This has been going on for over a year now

I reported this to Microsoft UK customer services over a year ago as the company claimed to be Microsoft UK technicians. Obvious frauds to people with IT backgrounds, but to the standard user very frightening especially as they also get your name with your phone number.

By EricBell on 8 Jul 2010

This has been going on for over a year now

I reported this to Microsoft UK customer services over a year ago as the company claimed to be Microsoft UK technicians. Obvious frauds to people with IT backgrounds, but to the standard user very frightening especially as they also get your name with your phone number.

By EricBell on 8 Jul 2010

Some Coincidence.............

Rec'd a round robin email yesterday pointing me to this page, & the scam.
I'd had lots of calls earlier in the year(Feb & March, but nothing since then, then this morning I got a new one!
Same as everyone else, eventvwr, etc, then passed onto 'Paul Woods'.
As I knew the game I stringed him along as long as I could, but I couldn't get him to admit he wasn't in London, gave me an address of 24 North Stree, East London ! With a website of microworld pc solutions, we debated back & forth, with me trying to get him to admit he wasn't in London, which I failed at.
However I managed to beat my world record of keeping him on the phone for 24 minutes, and he believed I was sat in front of my PC screen, which I wasn't ~ LOLs.
What I did get out of him was they would support my PC remotely for £55 for 1 year or £100 for 2 years, and he said they use TeamViewer to manage this remotely. He finally got fed up with me & hung up!!

Do let as many pc users know about this scam, its being run by at least five different crews, probably all out of the same building somewhere in Asia, some people will get caught, otherwise why do they bother doing it.

By OwainGlyndwr on 8 Jul 2010

How about playing along with them in a virtual machine (VirtualBox) ... and then say "Oops, I've just reset my VM snapshot" when they demand a hundred quid?

By fusioned on 8 Jul 2010

Nice one Diadon

You're quite right; and it's the snobbishness one one side, and the neediness on the other, that sustains the scam.

By Steve_Cassidy on 8 Jul 2010

I had a call from one of my customers on his mobile this morning. He'd got Comantra on the phone who'd contacted him telling him he'd got errors on his computer. They got him to look in the Event Viewer where of course there are always some warnings. He believed them and gave them his credit card details to sign up for a 12 month contract. I advised him to get off the phone and cancel his credit card immediately.

By RichieP on 10 Jul 2010

UK Police close in..............

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/new
s/2267232/police-act-shut-cold-call-scam?page=1

By OwainGlyndwr on 30 Jul 2010

I think I've just been done!!

I had the call this weekend - before I got the warning email - they were very convincing, the company number and address even come up on a companies house search. They are calling them selves onlinepcmasters.com. I did find out that the lad who called was in Delli and he was actually very helpfull and cleaned up our 3 computers so I was very pleased (mind I am a total technophobe). After getting this email warning I called the number for tech help and got through the second time of calling and was told I would get a call back, but nothing as yet, so I guess they are part of the con. is there likely to be any problems that they have put into my computer while they were 'fixing' it?

By missmuffin on 5 Aug 2010

I think I've just been done!!

I had the call this weekend - before I got the warning email - they were very convincing, the company number and address even come up on a companies house search. They are calling them selves onlinepcmasters.com. I did find out that the lad who called was in Delli and he was actually very helpfull and cleaned up our 3 computers so I was very pleased (mind I am a total technophobe). After getting this email warning I called the number for tech help and got through the second time of calling and was told I would get a call back, but nothing as yet, so I guess they are part of the con. is there likely to be any problems that they have put into my computer while they were 'fixing' it?

By missmuffin on 5 Aug 2010

I think I've just been done!!

I had the call this weekend - before I got the warning email - they were very convincing, the company number and address even come up on a companies house search. They are calling them selves onlinepcmasters.com. I did find out that the lad who called was in Delli and he was actually very helpfull and cleaned up our 3 computers so I was very pleased (mind I am a total technophobe). After getting this email warning I called the number for tech help and got through the second time of calling and was told I would get a call back, but nothing as yet, so I guess they are part of the con. is there likely to be any problems that they have put into my computer while they were 'fixing' it?

By missmuffin on 5 Aug 2010

Me Too :(

My Father has just been done by this scam. The company was under a different name - supportvirtual.com but all the other signs listed in the article remain the same. Unfortunately they also managed to convince my dad to enable them remote access to his PC so we have had to reformat it all and block his cards etc. They used klickandPay to process the payment. I hope this will be publicised more on a national news channel to help prevent it from happening to more and more people. These guys must be getting rich from scamming vulnerable people.

By murdoch on 1 Sep 2010