Geocaching Australia

I recently got a call (of the Indian call centre variety) saying that they were calling on behalf of my "computer support company" because my computer was running slow and they wanted to help.
I asked them for the name of this "computer support company" and they were evasive.
I had read that this was a known scam where they try to get control of your computer and/or credit card details, so I hung up.
Anyone else had one of these calls recently?

I've had 2. Hubby also had one, and when he asked which help desk they were from the caller read from his script and said "I am calling from insert company name here"

I have been able to avoid these type of calls by not having a land line! Unlisted mobile number probably helps too. LOL.
Having previously worked in banking I am quite aware of various phishing scams and methods people use for identity theft. Many times I have told people that they were being targeted by a scam but when they are being told they have won 100million euro in the Spanish lottery etc and just need to provide bank account details to recieve their winnings, frequently they would rather believe the con.

Doesn't hurt to be very sceptical when asked your name, address and date of birth by anyone over the phone. Even if they claim to be from an organisation you do business with. If they refuse to say what they are calling about ask for an extension or reference number and call them back on the listed business number.

I've had several customers approached, plus my father-in-law.

I'm waiting for my call, gonna string em along as long as I can manage

CraigRat wrote:I've had several customers approached, plus my father-in-law.

I'm waiting for my call, gonna string em along as long as I can manage

I did that! It was fun .

I knew of the scam so started with "thank god you called the screen is flashing purple". After about a minute he said he would get a senior support person to call me back. It has been weeks and strangely no call. Anyone else manage longer than a minute wasting their time?

One of my favourite sports is telemarketer-baiting. I usually tell them live in a house with 18 kids and a glass roof. That makes the roofing people pause for thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkdoogjic4I

A few of my friends have gotten this call. They were too quick to hang up, I think!

They call me, I'm planning to play dumb.

"What's a computerything?"

I had someone ring me a few weeks ago suggesting that they were working for a company on behalf of Microsoft. They told me that they were receiving a lot of error message eminating from my PC. They then took me into the system log and told me to look for all the error messages. I said that there weren't that many. He transferred me to a "senior technician" to go from here.

I asked him to specify a date on one of the error messages that they received from my PC. He gave me a date, and I then took a couple of minutes to scroll down to that date. I then asked him for a particular time on a message. At this stage he said "F@#$ off" and hung up.

I managed to string them along for 5 - 7 minutes before they realized that I knew what was going on.

It put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

Hmm, i normally get mistaken for a 10 year old on the phone.

This could work.

this is almost as funny as going to a dodgy site and receiving a "your computer has a virus" message, followed by a windows control panel lookalike screen... The scam isn't very convincing when I'm using Linux! You would think they would put something in their script to detect the OS before they pop up a "windows" screen

muzza wrote:I had someone ring me a few weeks ago suggesting that they were working for a company on behalf of Microsoft. They told me that they were receiving a lot of error message eminating from my PC. They then took me into the system log and told me to look for all the error messages. I said that there weren't that many. He transferred me to a "senior technician" to go from here.

I asked him to specify a date on one of the error messages that they received from my PC. He gave me a date, and I then took a couple of minutes to scroll down to that date. I then asked him for a particular time on a message. At this stage he said "F@#$ off" and hung up.

I managed to string them along for 5 - 7 minutes before they realized that I knew what was going on.

It put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

I had a similar call from Microsoft..... BUT seeing I don't have any microsoft applications on my machine I thought ......mmmm I wonder why. I asked what program it was and they told me it was in the windows operating system files.... mmmmmm I have a MAC ... no windows operating system anywhere near my machine.... SO I told them that "I was not bothered by windows errors or microsoft errors and did not wish to take the matter any further. Thank you for your scam call." Then I hung up. It felt goood.

My call was a bit different as they started with a question about what sort of something I had (can't remember exactly what). I said I didn't have a computer and they didn't believe me! "What, no computer at all in the house?"Stumped, they had to hang up.

But it wasn't nearly as much fun as you have all had, next time i am definitely going to try and string them along waaaaay longer.

My mum got the microsoft scammer call her and when she truthfully said that she didn't have a computer the scammer called her every name under the sun. Got to feel sorry for people who fall for it though.

My mother got the call, and answered their initial statement with "Oh really? That's interesting", whereupon they hung up.

So stringing them along could be hard work - almost have to out-scam them.

Charles Wright reported one of these scam types in the Green Guide a while back, so when I got a call I was ready. I would like to think that I would have woken up to it very quickly anyway, but I can see how people get caught.

One scam involves getting you to look at a system screen on your PC where perfectly normal errors are listed, and then on the basis of there being something wrong with your system, they ask for details of your computer so that they can "fix" it. Once they have access, your computer is theirs!

I decided to string them along a bit to waste their time. A mistake I would not recommend anyone else copying.

After several minutes I got sick of it and essentially hung up. They now think that they have a live one and for several weeks I have been getting repeat calls. By now I just swear profusely at them and hang up, and the calls are getting much fewer.

Bastards would quite happily rip off whatever they could from the most vulnerable people.

You might try getting a return phone number from them and reporting them although I am not sure who to and if it would make any diff.