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Scarewhare and Phone call scams

crowd pleaser

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Guys, many will be aware but some are not, So please read and be a little better protected.

I'm writing this after a couple of members of my family were nearly fooled. But phoned me for advice fortunately.

Phone rings, person ask's for you by name 'can i speak to mr or mrs muggins please'

Clue Sign 1) international or withheld number

Clue Sign 2) they claim to be from a security software company who to have detected a serious virus on you hard drive.

Clue Sign 3) the claim moves on to state this virus is serious and will 'burn a hole in the middle of tour hard drive'.

That claim is blatant, often made in email hoaxes and totally impossible to do - that is unless you let someone get at it with an acetylene or blow torch.

warning Sign 4) you will be asked ti type in some strings of code, this produces another string as an infection 'confirmation'. DO NOT TYPE ANYTHING INTO YOUR COMPUTER FROM A COMPLETE STRANGER!

Usually the scammer assures you if you download their software it will remove the virus - far from it! It will likely instal another scare/malware code, which will pop up screens again stating more infections detected well into the multiple hundreds - plain and simple scare ware, not a virus but experience to sanitise the windows registry to remove, so again inviting you to instal their removal tool.

If you do there are NO guarantees.

Best advice is if caller is not known to you ask for their phone number and company bank details, but better to simply replace the receiver/hang up.

If your your up for some revenge fun ask them to tell the IP Address the report came from - listen for the stumble :), they will likely play for time, and repeat the original script about 'holes in hard drives'.

To which you reply "i am the IT security consultant to several blue chip companies and anti-virus forums". Usually that causes an audible click as they hang up.

Now i'm a tad more spiteful, don't this folks ;)

i'll say 'please hold on i have to answer the door' make such noises, fake conversations for a few minutes. return to the phone and act like you can hardly hear them, also speak very softly. These people often have headsets on and working in noisy 'boiler rooms', so will now push them closer to their ears,

with all my force this is when i blow my 'old thunderer' football whistle directly into the phone, tends to end the conversation, but might need 2 blasts - i wonder why? :).

Any email get get from an important sounding name, classics are Dr blah blah, claiming to need help transferring money are simply going to empty you bank, any purporting to be from banks stating account suspension or unusual activity are simply scams, these organisations would write to you Via snail mail.

Never ever follow a link from any emails, close your browser and go onto you bank or PayPal account manually to check status.

Others can tag on scam methods for all to be better protected.
 
i agree! this article is really true. got a call like that before, similar clues, similar script and the man was really a PRO. told me Microsoft has received an alert from my computer because of a virus that's infected it and he's called me to let me know. if i didn't know anything. i would have been worried right away. i used my computer a lot because I'm a writer. But I've read similar scams reported to callercenter and i knew that call was just but another attempt to scam unsuspecting victims.
 
by the way, this was the phone number 800-698-9034 he used. when i looked up the phone number, i got several links with post related to it and here's one 800-698-9034 - Rob Williams. I bet this scammer's working his way to stardom. hahaha!
 
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