Computer Scam Warning

[Blacksmith]

The scammers just tried to stick me. A call from a gentleman with an indian accent saying he was from Microsoft Technical Service and my computer was infected with bad software. It sounded ligit so I carefully proceeded doing nothing that could compromise my computer. He "proved" that there were errors and warnings in my event viewer and wanted to have someone fix it for me. Itold him how nice it was for them to offer that FREE service and he started to evade. I then explained what I thought of him and hung up.

Here is a news article that describes the scam:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/18/phone-scam-india-call-centres

Warning to all he sounded slick so warn the less computer savy in your house and your friends to watch out.

[waksupi]

I talked to the weasel a couple weeks ago. You may have been a bit more polite than I.

[fatnhappy]

The gentleman called me a month or 2 ago, at work no less. I impolitely suggested he attempt an anatomically impossible task.

[10x]

Hey, my buddy will get these calls once in a while - he has an old laptop running on crude form of Lynux that I will plug in. This distro is designed and meant to unlock and format hard drives that ha
ve been locked.
It also has a small web browser that one can use to browse a hard drive, or browse the drive on a computer connected to it for that reason. It does not allow any other programs to do much more than look a very limited part of the RAM it controls.

He follows their instructions to "hook up" so they can fix "the problem" then talks to them while cruising their hard drive and renaming files.....
The goal of these guys is to either install a Trojan software that will record website password requests and password responses that get emailed back to them.
Or the software they put on allows them to "take over" your computer and use it in building a network for sending spam...

Buddy has a good time with them - the lap top is indestructible - and they have problems after they reboot....

BTW: these guys do not have much other than the remote access software on their computer. They operate out of Africa, Europe, and Asia..

[wiljen]

Ok, going down hill in a hurry here. I don't see anything positive coming from this and before infractions get handed out, I'm ending it.