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Author Topic: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.  (Read 9176 times)

kitz

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Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« on: May 29, 2017, 08:18:18 PM »

I have just had the most surreal experience ever which I thought I'd share as I know some of you guys like stringing along the scammers.
Bear with me for the first part because its kind of relevant, the weird stuff happens later.  Some of the convo is condensed.

Starts with the script "This is BT.  We are calling because you have a virus on your computer" from someone with a thick Indian type accent.
So I play along with the usual run/eventvwr fully knowing that they are trying to alarm me.
Told him that I wasn't concerned at things like flashplayer crash or mozilla application hang.
Next came type btwifiscreenconnect and he told me I was a liar when I said all that came up was 'Server not found'.   He is quite aggressive and tells me that I'm not doing things right.

Me:Perhaps that's because I don't use a BT router.
Him: No it’s because you have virus. That’s why you can’t connect.
Me: Quite sure I don't and I can connect to the internet just fine thanks.
Him: Type msbt.screenconnect.com into your chrome window
Me: This looks like a remote viewer that gives you access to my computer
Him: Don’t worry. Just type in code 840 and press enter.

Me: I'm not doing that as it would give you access to my PC.
Him: We need to fix your PC or BT will disconnect your internet.
Me: How will BT disconnect my internet?
Him: If you don't connect I either need to disconnect your internet immediately or pass you over to my manager.

At this point he decided to forgo giving me the choice and passes me straight over to his manager. 
2nd person comes on the line, he speaks much better English with a slightly different type of accent. 

2nd: Please connect to BT support so we can fix your PC.
Me: Nothing wrong with my PC
2nd: How do you know that?
Me: ..... At this point I start leaking hints that I'm technical and am quite aware of what event viewer is.  That I run several types of malware protection and had studied viruses for my dissertation in BSc Computing Science. [Partial lie - dissertation was compression although I did deviate into researching malware].
2nd: If you connect then I can check for you.  If not I will have to disconnect your internet.
Me: So you're going to disconnect my internet?  Tell me how you will do this. 
Me: Please tell me my username so that I know which account your are supposedly going to disconnect.
2nd: We don't disclose usernames. You don't need to know that, just like I don't need to know what you had for breakfast.
Me: I'd love to know how you will disconnect me as I'm not even with BT.
2nd: So why are you still on the phone?
Me: Because the longer you are tied up with me then that's less time you have of conning innocent people out of money who may fall for your scam.
Me: You are the lowest of the low.  Scamming people out of their money. How can you live with yourself conning people all day?
2nd:  I'm not from BT - I work for [missed the name began with S I think] and I'm in Syria.
2nd:  How old are you - would you like more babies?
Me: What..  you're kidding.
2nd: Please ma'am how old are you and are you married?
Me: 58 and married [both are a lie btw!]
2nd: Where's your husband?
Me: At work
2nd: Please ma'am I'm desperate to get out of Syria.  Your government are bombing us.  Would you divorce your husband and marry me.
Me: I laughed.
2nd: See I can make you happy, that could be my job.  You can divorce your husband and get £10,000.  I have £6000 saved up.  We can live happy for many years on 15 thousand.  We can have babies.
Me: [laughs] At my age I think that's unlikely.
2nd: It can happen.  Google it. Women in their 60's can have babies.
Me: I'm not going to divorce my husband
2nd: Its horrible here, children with missing limbs.  We have no money for food.
2nd: I have six thousand saved up.  Its terrible.   I don't like having to scam people for £60 but I do that so I can eat and try get out of here. Help me find a woman to marry. I can make them laugh.
2nd: Please can I call you tomorrow? I'm a good person. I dont like having to scam people every day and want to get out. We could be happy.


Well that was an unusual twist.  I'd expected it to terminate with the usual angry wasting their time speech and them slamming the phone down on me.  :silly:



Attached screen cap of the remote viewer that could catch out quite a lot of people because they wont know what it is, nor the damage that could be caused if they put that number in.
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skyeci

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2017, 09:03:33 PM »

My neighbour was unlucky to fall for the scam and gave them remote access to his laptop. Full wipe and rebuild to ensure it was clean after the event..

4candles

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2017, 09:34:25 PM »

Well, you did say there was a twist, but that was something else!   ???   Thanks for sharing.


Do you think he'll call tomorrow?   ;D
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2017, 09:58:10 PM »

Wow.  Beats anything I've had by miles.

If he does call again tomorrow and it ceases ro be funny, it might be worth contacting the police.   With the right authority, BT should actually be able to do quite a lot to identify individual malicious callers, far beyond just recording the caller id, which for these calls is always faked anyway.

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kitz

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #4 on: May 29, 2017, 11:02:14 PM »

The first guy was quite aggressive in his approach and quite forceful, he wasn't listening to any of the clues I dropped that I was not with BT, just kept giving out instructions on what I needed to do and how bad it was that my PC was infected.  He was getting irate because I refused to put the number he gave me into the website.  He said something about damaging the internet which I didnt quite understand.  Most of the call was with him telling me what I had to do.

The second guy had far better English and realised quite soon that I wasnt going to fall for it. I fully expected him to have a go at me for wasting their time so was not prepared for what came out next.  On reflection it has quite a lot of similarities to the old African type scams.  I think he just tried swapping one tactic for another.   

No he wont be calling tomorrow, I think I made that quite clear.  Even if he does, Col will be here all day anyhow so I easily pass the phone over to him if I'm concerned but I dont think it will come to anything else and I can always put the phone down.

I do have the number which called, but that gives nothing much away.  Its 0008000588174
Probably have more luck reporting it to screenconnect.com.      The scammers are obviously using that for their dirty deeds and paid for the subdomains btwifi and msbt.
I was puzzling over what the command btwifiscreenconnect.com was that he was asking me to put in the run box.   
Just realised it should have been btwifi.screenconnect (note the dot).   I was thinking at first it was a shortcut page to the homehub or something.
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Ronski

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #5 on: May 30, 2017, 09:14:43 AM »

That was a good twist and certainly had us laughing here when the second line support guy came on to you - literally! Last time I had a call like this at work they ended up calling me a mother F*****, I only wished I'd recorded the call.

The said truth is that even if he has saved up 6k to get to the UK the people smugglers will have that and he may eventually get here with nothing and still lead a miserable life probably still involving crime and being taken advantage of.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #6 on: May 30, 2017, 10:31:20 AM »

Certamly, the scammers seem to be quite versatile and willing to switch tact.

Not many weeks ago, I got a computer virus scam call.  I led him along a bit until he reallised he was on a hiding to nothing, he swore a bit and hung up, all quite normal.

Later that morning I got one of the other common scams, claiming to be from Telephone Preference Service, "I understand you may be getting a lot of unwanted calls?".   I've had that one many times before too, mothing remarkable in itself.

But the interesting thing was both of above came fron the same number, a valid Indian international code iirc.   I'm guessing the first caller, having failed in the virus scam but recognised that I was miffed, passes it to the guy at the next desk, who moves in to take advantage with the alternative scam.
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c6em

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #7 on: May 30, 2017, 12:50:00 PM »

Can I suggest that instead of winding them up you simply put the phone down?

If I was in their position and if I had my time wasted by someone trying to be clever I'd ensure that your number was put on a scammers numpty list to be endlessly rung as retaliation.
Ever wonder why I get next to none of these calls, perhaps 1 every 6 months......
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #8 on: May 30, 2017, 01:27:34 PM »

Can I suggest that instead of winding them up you simply put the phone down?

If I was in their position and if I had my time wasted by someone trying to be clever I'd ensure that your number was put on a scammers numpty list to be endlessly rung as retaliation.
Ever wonder why I get next to none of these calls, perhaps 1 every 6 months......

And more than one scammer has threatened me with just that, adding me to a list, along with all the other daft threats, like 'disconnecting my internet'.

Thing is  though, although the guys making the calls are probably paid very little, there is most likely a highly profitable criminal mastermind in the background raking in the real profits.   The more people that waste the caller's time, the less cost-effective the whole criminal business becomes, simply by cutting down the number of calls they can make.

I do of course sometimes choose to just not answer, or to hang up, if I am in a hurry.   But if I'm in the mood, and can spare the time I actally quite enjoy leading them on.  Cheers me up, especially when they get angry and start swearing. :blush:
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Ronski

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #9 on: May 30, 2017, 02:08:37 PM »

I've only had one call that I can remember,  and that was some months ago,  I think we did get one other call from the same number,  but since I added it to the company wide phone book as scammers no body answered it.

I also enjoy winding them up and wasting their time,  which is probably one less person conned than if I'd just hung up.
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kitz

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #10 on: May 30, 2017, 02:35:32 PM »

Quote
I've only had one call that I can remember,  and that was some months ago,


They use random diallers so much of it is luck of the draw whether you get them or not.   That's why even people who are ex-d and TPS registered get them too.
I seldom get them.   My dad used to get quite a lot and he just used to put the phone down on them.    If I have time I play along, past responses are they usually put the phone down or swear when they realise they've been sussed.

No point them putting you on a list to call again once they realise you are astute enough not to fall for it and enjoy wasting their time.   The unfortunates who do get put on a 'gullible' list are those who have fallen for it once :/
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kitz

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #11 on: May 30, 2017, 02:37:17 PM »

This is a good one which came up on my feed today.

https://www.facebook.com/NZPolice/videos/1101249466675702/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED

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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #12 on: May 30, 2017, 05:58:33 PM »

I've probably told this tale before...

Not long before my Dad passed away a few years ago, over the phone one night, he mentioned that somebody from Microsoft had called him, and told him he had lots of viruses on his PC.  The caller had talked him through 'fixing' the problem.   Oops. :o

He told me how the caller had told him to press all sorts of keys (trying to bring up event logs), but he'd not managed to do so.   The caller had then tried to make him install something called TeamViewer, but that hadn't worked either, for reasons that were unclear.   :-\

Then the penny dropped.   I had personal experience of trying to sort out Dad's computer problems  remotely and, with his (understatement) limited understanding, I knew how hard it was to get him to do anything sensible at the keyboard.  The scammer never stood a chance, I almost felt sorry for him. :D

This is a good one which came up on my feed today.
https://www.facebook.com/NZPolice/videos/1101249466675702/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED

@kitz, sorry, that link seems to require a login to facebook. :(
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Chrysalis

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #13 on: May 30, 2017, 07:18:51 PM »

never heard of anyone in the uk been targeted before, thankfully I have none of these idiots phoning me.
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kitz

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Re: Scam virus cold call - with a twist.
« Reply #14 on: May 30, 2017, 07:29:31 PM »

@7LM

Try this link without the newsfeed reference - here.   It still gives you a prompt at the bottom of the page to create an account, but the post should still be viewable.
 I've just tested it in a browser I don't usually use without putting in my login so hopefully it should work for you  :fingers:
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