Scam: "Your Computer is doing something wrong"

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davids45
Posts: 1326
Joined: Sun 26 Nov 2006, 23:33
Location: Chatswood, NSW

Scam: "Your Computer is doing something wrong"

#1 Post by davids45 »

G'day,

I suspect we are not alone in Sydney getting 'cold calls' in strong Indian accents telling us that they are seeing our computer is doing something wrong and we should let them fix this 'problem'.

I respond that "I am not using Windows", and "No, I'm not using Apples either".

I say "I use Linux"....at which point the line goes dead incredibly quickly.

You could tell your Windows/Apple-friends bothered by such calls to use this strategy of "I'm using Linux" (i.e. lie to the liars).

David S.
Last edited by davids45 on Tue 12 Aug 2014, 04:27, edited 1 time in total.

dancytron
Posts: 1519
Joined: Wed 18 Jul 2012, 19:20

#2 Post by dancytron »

My mom kept getting that call.

I answered it for her one time and cussed them out and they didn't call again.

I am in Missouri (USA)

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Barkin
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Joined: Fri 12 Aug 2011, 04:55

#3 Post by Barkin »

wired.co.uk wrote:What happens if you play along with a Microsoft 'tech support' scam?

... the scam involves people in Indian call centres ringing up and saying that they are representatives from Microsoft technical support. They then tell the victim that their computer is running slowly because of viruses or because they need an additional piece of software -- at a cost, of course ...
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-04/11/malwarebytes

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mikeb
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Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#4 Post by mikeb »

Funny really microsoft themselves were doing this to XP users via pop ups..... who are the real criminals lol

mike

Sylvander
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Location: West Lothian, Scotland, UK

Re: Scam: "Your Computer is doing something wrong"

#5 Post by Sylvander »

davids45 wrote:getting 'cold calls'
I NEVER accept "cold calls".
My answerphone takes ALL CALLS.
Friends and family know this, and know to speak up and identify themselves, and that I will immediately answer their call if I'm present.
Cold callers practically always hang up without speaking.
Sometimes I need to delete recorded silence.
Sometimes a machine is making the call, and speaking to my answerphone to leave a message, in which case I lift and replace the handset, and delete the portion of recorded message.

They NEVER get through to me, which is rather satisfying. :D

Puppyt
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#6 Post by Puppyt »

Hey, great tip Sylvander! Unfortunately I was in the same boat as davids45 with the cold-calling, but even my (ex)wife took great delight in finding just how quickly they hung up after the magic words "We use Linux" :lol:
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neerajkolte
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Location: Pune, India.

#7 Post by neerajkolte »

Would you believe I got similar call.
In my case though they used American accent. (Probably me being an Indian they thought that way I would trust them.)

But I had read an post in January on www.howtogeek.com about funny way to handle them. See Here.

Luckily I was home and in front of my machine. So just like in the post, I told them to hang on till I boot my PC and booted Windows7 in QEMU-KVM in my Fatdog64.

The howtogeek guies got to 3 transferred calls and remote desktopping. I was not that patient and got bored.

After few time I just told him I m running a call trace and recording this on my Linux machine and see you soon. (Which I have no Idea how to do..... yet :wink: )
The line went cold.

They call Americans with Indian accent, Indian with American and so on.
Nobody is spared.

Crooks have no nationality.......
Why should we have one, my brothers. :lol:
"One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code."
- Ken Thompson

“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.â€￾
- Amara’s Law.

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