Tech support phone scams no more: regulators smash global operation - Polidicks

e: welp, looks like it's late [url]http://www.zdnet.com/regulators-smash-global-phone-tech-support-scam-operation-7000005195/[/url] [quote=ZDNet]Regulators from five countries joined together in an operation to crack down on a series of companies orchestrating one of the most widespread Internet scams of the decade. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other international regulatory authorities today said they shut down a global criminal network that bilked tens of thousands of consumers by pretending to be tech support providers. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, speaking during a press conference with a Microsoft executive and regulators from Australia and Canada, said 14 companies and 17 individuals were targeted in the investigation. In the course of the crackdown, U.S. authorities already have frozen $188,000 in assets, but Leibowitz said that would increase over time thanks to international efforts. "These so-called tech support scams are the latest variation of scareware," Leibowitz said. English-speaking consumers in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.K. were targeted in the global scam. Most of the scammers were based in India, but some also came from the U.S. and U.K. The scam involved cold callers who claimed to work for major technology companies, such as Microsoft or Google, and who told consumers they had viruses on their PCs. The callers would attempt to dupe users into giving them remote access to their computers, locking the user out while attempting to "fix" the malware that the scammer claimed was on the machine. In some cases, ads were placed on Google to lure in unwitting consumers when they searched for their PC's tech support phone number. And many of the people called were on do-not-call registries. Windows PC users were targeted seemingly indiscriminately and charged between $49 to $450 to remove the non-existent malware that the supposed tech company representative claimed was on the PC. Leibowitz said the frozen assets could be distributed to victims once they are identified, but he warned it's rare to "get 100 percent back in restitution." The FTC said that more importantly, it should be able to stop the scams going forward. It is thought there could be upwards of tens of thousands of victims worldwide in total across six countries, and the FTC warned that the figure could be "significantly higher." The scammers attempted to avoid detection by using virtual offices, including more than 80 different domain names and 130 different phone numbers. Officials said many of the scammers from India were using U.S. carriers, and the carriers agreed to block the numbers. A U.S. District Court for judge, at the request of the FTC, ordered a stop to six alleged tech-support scams pending further hearings. A further 17 individual defendants were also targeted by the FTC in six legal filings with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The FTC charged the suspects with the Federal Trade Commission Act, which bars unfair and deceptive commercial practices, and were also charged with illegally calling numbers on the Do Not Call Registry. More than 10,000 complaints were drawn from Australian citizens to the country's regulator as early as 2009. Once the scam began to spread around the world, the Australia Communication and Media Authority contacted U.S. authorities with intelligence on the scammers, which had by then received 2,400 complaints. The FTC said "hundreds of thousands of U.S. consumers" could have been affected. Canada had also received "thousands and thousands" of complaints, but Andrea Rosen, chief compliance and enforcement officer at the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, said it was difficult to identify exactly how many. In Australia, it was estimated that the scammers made about $85 from each successful scam. The FTC is working with the Indian authorities, but did not disclose confidential details due to the ongoing investigations. Leibowitz thanked U.K.'s Serious Organised Crime Agency and the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) for their "invaluable assistance" to the FTC. Canada's Rosen said "we make a difference by working together," highlighting how the agencies and regulators collaborated across borders to investigate the scams. The FTC also acknowledged investigative assistance it received from Microsoft, as well as from other technology companies. Frank Torres, Microsoft's director of consumer affairs and senior policy counsel, said at the press conference that Microsoft will continue to work with the agencies as other scams emerge. He noted that Microsoft will never cold call customers and ask for their credit cards to charge them for services they don't need. "It's like playing a game of whack-a-mole, really, for cyber criminals to find ways to deceive people," Torres said.[/quote] About damn time.

These guys called us and tried to convince my dad that standard error logs in windows were in fact caused by a virus, so he started explaining that it was just a regular error and they went 'oh shit, he knows about computers!' and hung up.

I kept them on for about half an hour asking stupid shit before I said I had a mac and he hung up.

I love messing around with these type of scammers. Acting like a computer illiterate retard who can't understand logic really does get them riled up.

Trolling these scammer guys and wasting their time is an enjoyable afternoon indeed. Glad they got shut down, though.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yor0jd33mow[/media]

I always pretend I'm a 74 year old grandfather who has dial up

It's hard for me to blatantly refuse to listen to someone, since I imagine this happens when I do. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a77xUFS1pts[/media] I usually just listen to what they want to say to me, and then make it apparent I'm not doing whatever it is they want me to do.

[QUOTE='[EG] Pepper;37902209']I love messing around with these type of scammers. Acting like a computer illiterate retard who can't understand logic really does get them riled up.[/QUOTE] How come I never get called by the interesting ones? Its always polls or "BRRRRRR YOU'VE WON A CRUISE".

Got a call from this lady who claimed he's from Microsoft and she said I got virus on my computer. Said she'd help me fix it if I let her have remote access. I told her I knew what she was up to and called the bluff. Damn scammer! She should have known I got a mac.

My friends secretly did something horrific once and signed me up to some online thing with my real phone number under the name 'Jew Killer'. I got a call out of the blue one day and some indian guy said 'Hello, is this Jew Killer'. I was like oh shit what's all this. Turned out he wanted my credit card details because I had won a cruise. I swear if he ACTUALLY thought 'Jew Killer' was a real persons name, he must have been a mental

I get telemarketer phone calls always at 9am and 12pm. I always pick up the phone and say something really disturbing. "I swear to Odin, you call back one more time, I will eat your children." Stuff along the lines of that. :/

I've had a few of my business customers attacked by these types of scams. I'm glad they've listened to us enough to not fall for this bs and call us instead to confirm or deny anything... Funny thing though, we had a consumer walk into the shop who actually fell for it...poor guy... Had to tell him it was all a scam and call his Credit Card company and have it challenged.

I had one of these guys call me today, decided to follow their instructions word by word, on my Linux box. The result was unsatisfying though. They just called me a fool and hung up.

Whenever a telemarketer calls me I yell "GET OFF THE LINE I'M TRYING TO CALL 911 OH GOD HE'S HERE HELP ME"

Makes me wish I got called by one of these. I would've thrown a fake panic attack and hysterically screamed into the phone.

Are they talking about geeksquad? :D

Coincidentely I watch some video by this guy, it's long, but he wanted to waste as much time as possible so they can't scam anyone else. [video=youtube;kjKjyMKj3n4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjKjyMKj3n4[/video]

[QUOTE=patq911;37925082]Coincidentely I watch some video by this guy, it's long, but he wanted to waste as much time as possible so they can't scam anyone else. [video=youtube;kjKjyMKj3n4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjKjyMKj3n4[/video][/QUOTE] I just watched the whole thing. Absolutely hilarious. The whole "defeated villain" speech from Richard at the end made it all worth it.

[QUOTE=patq911;37925082]Coincidentely I watch some video by this guy, it's long, but he wanted to waste as much time as possible so they can't scam anyone else. [video=youtube;kjKjyMKj3n4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjKjyMKj3n4[/video][/QUOTE] Wow, that's hilarious. I don't even get how people could fall for this kind of thing with those unintelligible phone scammers.

But what about my Nigerian gold?

I got a call from one of these scammers in the summer Bastard interrupted my nap, so I wasted as much time as i could until he hung up

Got a call like that yesterday. The caller sounded foreign with a strong accent. Told me Microsoft detected a virus in my computer and he called to help. And one thing I noticed, the scammer was very knowledgeable about computers. Had I not known about this scam, I might have allowed the man access to my computer. You see, he called at the right time. My computer hasn't been working properly the past few days.

My dad recieved a call from one, Saying his computer was "Destroying his internet because he had a virus". My dad exploded laughing and told him to say it again so he can record it.

The scammer never called again but I think it's important I share a warning about that call. The phone number used was 402-875-9195 and all I needed was to Google it to pull up this page: [url]http://www.callercenter.com/402-875-9195.html[/url]. Apparently, the scammer's been making the rounds, trying to con people out of money. I encourage everybody to be cautious about anonymous calls. Like what the authorities always say, vigilance keeps the scammers at bay.

I am usually really polite to people, even if they're trying to scam me, all ask them to gtfo nicely. Anyways, this wasn't a scammer but rather a girl conducting a survey. She sounded really sweet and bummed out so I decided to comply with the survey. First off, I'm sixteen. 30 minutes of questions and I was beginning to grow tired of the survey. At the end when I said I had to go, she asked me why I chose not to use a vehicle. I said because I'm not 18 yet and only have my permit (the survey turned out to be for adults only) She started crying on the phone because she needed to get 10 legitimate people to comply and submit good results, and after eight hours I was the first to comply but since I was underage the results became void. She said "oh well" and hung up. I felt like an ass for days.

[QUOTE=alexandra;38058532]The scammer never called again but I think it's important I share a warning about that call. The phone number used was 402-875-9195 and all I needed was to Google it to pull up this page: [URL]http://www.callercenter.com/402-875-9195.html[/URL]. Apparently, the scammer's been making the rounds, trying to con people out of money. I encourage everybody to be cautious about anonymous calls. Like what the authorities always say, vigilance keeps the scammers at bay.[/QUOTE] brb

[QUOTE=alexandra;38058532]The scammer never called again but I think it's important I share a warning about that call. The phone number used was 402-875-9195 and all I needed was to Google it to pull up this page: [url]http://www.callercenter.com/402-875-9195.html[/url]. Apparently, the scammer's been making the rounds, trying to con people out of money. I encourage everybody to be cautious about anonymous calls. Like what the authorities always say, vigilance keeps the scammers at bay.[/QUOTE] This is why you don't answer the phone for numbers you don't know. If the number doesn't reside in your area code or area codes around your area, it's probably a spam call. If someone really wants to contact you, they can leave a voice message or text.