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Scareware pushers take to the phones... anyone else see this?

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by cwerdna, Jul 10, 2012.

  1. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    Crazy!

    The quoted part below is from someone's post on TiVocommunity.
    Someone else commented

    Another person posted that this was similar to When Antivirus Scammers Call the Wrong Guy - Slashdot. There's a great video there of what the scammer did. For those who are tech savvy, you'll enjoy it... I think.
     
    #1 cwerdna, Jul 10, 2012
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  2. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    #2 cwerdna, Oct 3, 2012
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  3. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

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    We've been getting these calls in Australia for about the past year. They tell me that there's a problem with "the computer in the house". When I ask them which one - there are five - they tell me it's "the Windows computer". A couple of times, when I haven't been too busy, I've gone along with them, about as far as the person in your first post did. Except I just pretended to follow their prompts - I didn't even have the computer switched on. At some point, I'd shout "AAAAAAAGGGH! ALL MY FILES ARE BEING DELETED! DID YOU DO THIS?" and they'd hang up.

    Otherwise, I tend to put on my breathy voice and tell them they sound hot. Especially the men (I am a man). Usually, by the time I've got to the stage of asking them about their underwear, they hang up.

    But I am intrigued as to what the end game is. I've always assumed it's something more than selling me an "anti-virus upgrade package" - I thought they'd try to get me to install some sort of back door to my computer.
     
    #3 hkmb, Oct 3, 2012
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  4. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    I always have a remotely accessible honey-pot available for dopes to play in. It is fun :)
     
    #4 2k1Toaster, Oct 3, 2012
  5. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    I've never gotten one of these calls but it would be funny if I had a VM ready like the guy featured in the Slashdot article.
     
    #5 cwerdna, Oct 3, 2012
  6. DavidA

    DavidA Prius owner since July 2009

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    Ha! Let 'em try! I don't even have a computer, so they can't dupe me into anything. Bwahahahahahaa!
     
    #6 DavidA, Oct 4, 2012
  7. Stev0

    Stev0 Honorary Hong Kong Cavalier

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    #7 Stev0, Oct 4, 2012
  8. User37

    User37 Can spell PRIUS

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    They are active in Italy, too.

    We (our family) don't own a Microsoft PC, it happens to be an Apple household. There are Microsoft PC's at work though.
    When they called at home on Monday and asked for the >Windows computer< I first thought some guy in company IT had mixed up work and home phone numbers. As said, there are >Windows computer< at work. Only, the company IT support is based in Germany and the caller had an indian accent.

    So when I responded "We don't have a Windows computer here " he asked "You don't have a computer?"
    Me: "Oh yes, we have a computer"
    Him: "So what computer is it?"
    Me: "It's a macintosh"
    Him "Uh? What computer? "
    Me "Macintosh, Apple"
    Him: disconnects

    Should have done what Nate Anderson from ArsTechnica did, but I did't have the presence of mind
     
    #8 User37, Oct 4, 2012
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