Online Safety Series – Microsoft Phone Scams
If you’re a regular reader of our Online Safety Series, you’ll know that we always encourage our customers to keep an eye out out for any nasty phishing emails which land in their inbox.
But what about those scams which take place over a phone call? These are very real, and are easy traps for the technically unsure to fall into. The most common phishing phone scams are calls purporting to be from Microsoft regarding viruses on your computer. This particular scam has been ongoing since as far back as 2009, and continues strong to this day.
Microsoft is obviously aware of this issue, and have issued statements regarding these calls, however the calls are still persisting. These calls are commonplace for some customers and hopefully those customers have learned to simply hang up the phone, but for those who haven’t experienced the joy of these calls, here’s how they play out:
Stage 1: The Phone Call
You’ll receive a phone call at your home or office from someone claiming they’re from Microsoft and that you’ve got viruses on your computer. They may also say they’re from places as nondescript as the ‘Windows Technical Department’ (something I’d assume would be the world’s largest technical department, if in fact it actually existed).
Stage 2: The Download
The caller will then direct you to a website where you can download software which will let them remotely access your computer and remove the viruses for you.
Stage 3: The Scam
Once the caller has conveniently ‘removed’ these viruses from your computer, they’ll then offer you ‘lifetime protection’ from similar viruses, all for a convenient, once-off fee of course (the actual figure changes, a friend of mine fell for the trap and was slugged over $300 for their troubles).
Hopefully our Online Safety Series has taught you to be vigilant with potential scams. Don’t read or follow instructions from suspicious emails, and definitely don’t follow suspicious phone calls. Most importantly, don’t ever give out any personal information, whether it’s a password or credit card number, over the phone from someone who has called you.
Hang up the phone, don’t engage.It might save you a costly headache.
Facebook introduces phishing reporting
Finally this month, Facebook has introduced an email address which users can contact to report suspicious phishing attempts. So if you’re receiving some ‘interesting’ traffic on your account or emails claiming to be from Facebook that don’t look legitimate, be sure to drop the honchos at Facebook a line. They’re hoping that with millions upon millions of users, the Facebook community will band together and reduce phishing attempts on its network.
30 comments
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I *love* these calls. The caller has a few seconds to bait you, or they just move onto the next call. Play them at their own game – waste their time.
I play dim-wit, or if my partner is home, Crun and Bannister (Google “The Goons”). At first I get really worried and pretend I’m in a panic. I let them calm me down, and eventually we get around to actually turning on the computer. All the while, playing my game: eat up their time.
Log in really, really slowly. Get the password wrong a couple of times. “Click the Start button”, they say. Which leads to another 5 minutes of confusion: it’s a Linux box.
Get your own back: waste their time and annoy them!
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We had this happen to my GF parents, they kept calling back every week even after they were totally busted. They stopped calling when I blew a high pitch whistle down the phone line. Hahaha!!
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I kept telling them over and over again that they were the scammers that I had seen on “a current affair” after about a minute of that he hung up on me!
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My common answers to this are “I own a Mac” or “which one?”
I also strung them along so much one time the caller was yelling at *me* for wasting *their* time and hung up on me. I won at phone scams that day.[Reply]
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Love these calls! We use them for fun these days. For example, we have a competition to see how long we can keep them on the line before they hang up. Sometimes we pretend we’re in Law Enforcement (AFP, Vic Pol etc) and mess with their minds. I personally enjoy pretending my pc has been stolen and try to get them to tell me where ir is! Other times i’ll tell them i own a MAC. Another goos one is to start speaking when they do or ask for their supervisor and complain that they didn’t fix the problem the last time they called and demand your money back! Be inventive.
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I am forever receiving emails saying I have won a mager prize like £7500,000,00 lotto or audi new car
I check my emails on my iPad is there any way I can spam them or report it or stop them
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Adam O'grady Reply:
September 22nd, 2012 at 9:55 amSome email providers do provide anti-spam systems to filter out spam messages before you get them. If it’s an @iinet.net.au email address that you’re getting spam sent to, you can forward the email (with headers preferably) to spam@access.ironport.com which will help our anti-spam system get better at recognising the sorts of emails that are spam.
Regards,
Adam[Reply]
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I received a call from them yesterday. The man Jacob, said he was calling from Online PC Experts.com located in Sydney but obviously he was calling from overseas as there was a delay in his answering when I picked up the phone. After listening to him for a couple of minutes, I realised it would be a scam and promptly hung up.
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I got one of these calls a while back and I strung them along for so long that in the end they hung up on me!
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As soon as I hear the words ‘microsoft’ I hang up without saying anything. It happened again yesterday.
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I think the best thing you can do with these calls is to waste their time and not hang up. I like to string them along and say I am booting up and have them wait a long tim and then when they give you direction of what to do on your PC (which of course you aren’t on), you make sure you have lots of tech issues every step of the way wheather it be opening explorer or whatever. Then you can have your computer crash and you start all over again. Just keep it going – the more time you spend the less time they have trying to scam someone else. Keep it going until THEY hang up, not you. It’s a real laugh – imagine if everyone did this to them, how many calls would never get placed. I say have a heap of fun with them.
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Sneak peak? I think not: sneak peek,perhaps.
Giveaway? The verb is give away: the noun is give-away. Awesome? The firmament is awesome:nothing else comes even close. Amazing? Great beyond expectation? Hardly.
Tone down the teenage jargon in your newsletter, it’s very distracting[Reply]
ben Reply:
September 22nd, 2012 at 1:17 pm@Ian Lindsay, agree with you completely. I’ve even got the feeling that ‘sneak peak’ is a deliberate misspelling, designed to make it stand out. Poor George Orwell is not lying calmly in his grave.
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Hi, Just advising that we get 2 telephone calls per week from obscure callers quoting mumbled names telling to go to our computer as we have virus’s. No amount of asking for a name or company will give anything more than a mumble but ‘it is imperative to switch on your computer.’ I have been aware of this scam for some time and advised husband not to follow their instructions. He swears at the caller, I just leave them to talk to themselves by placing the phone to one side and hopefully waste their time and money. I am more aware of the issue as it takes many hello’s before there is a connection. Very annoying that someone has my number to ring, Helen
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If they’re repeatedly calling you just tell them you are running Linux (even if you aren’t) I did and they stopping calling me.
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This phone scam has become so common among my friends that they are competing to invent the most innovative, costly to the caller response! The leader is “Just a minute, I’ll get the computer owner” and leave the phone off the hook until they hang up.
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A recent phishing attempt was an email purporting to be from Paypal, confirming a payment I was supposed to have made to eBay. It asked me to fill in details on a web link to have the money returned to my bank account if the payment was not correct. Send emails like this to spoof@paypal.com.au. Be wary of emails with an old address for you.
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Am not a Facebook user nor do i wish to be in the future so doubt whether I am in a position to report instances of Phishing to the “fb” address ??
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the best i heard about that lot was they
rang a computer repair co who sent them
littel bit signal down the line that would
some time top get out of there systembob
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I’ve had this phone call. Sounded implausible. Hung up on them.
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IF I HAPPEN TO HAVE THE TIME, INCLINATION & A FRESHLY POURED ‘STIFF’ BOURBON AT HAND,I FIND THESE CALLS QUITE ‘AMUSING’!LIKE OTHER ‘REPLIERS’ BEFORE ME, I ALSO DERIVE GREAT ENJOYMENT & SATISFACTION FROM WASTING AS MUCH OF THEIR TIME AS POSSIBLE!
EG:HANG ON A MINUTE, SOMEONE IS AT THE DOOR, OR SOMEONE IS CALLING ON THE OTHER LINE.
THE ‘PC’OWNER IS IN THE SHOWER,WON’T BE LONG!!& THEN LEAVE THE PHONE ‘FOREVER!!’
ALSO, AS MY INITIALS ARE ‘PC’, I ALSO ‘FEIGN CONFUSION AS TO DO THEY WISH TO SPEAK TO’PC’ OR ‘FIX’ THE PC!!#?
THEN AGAIN,IF I’M GETTING BORED WITH THE WHOLE THING,I JUST TELL THEM TO ‘BUGGEROFF’
& STOP WASTING MY TIME!![Reply]
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Have these calls all the time… I usually tell hem where to go or just hang up on them.
However I’m pissed that they even have my number… It’s a private phone number which iinet charges me for every month. I get a lot of telemarketing calls despite being unlisted.
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re the phone calls
Husband ,bored and retired,loves these as he is constantly baiting them.
caller asking for me—–:sorry but she is overseas at present———-no i do not have a computer————wait while i put my hearing aid on,whistling noise,can you speak up,—sorry a little louder etc,this goes on till they hand up.
Also sounds of buttons being pressed then tells caller that his number etc is being recorded by federal police tracing drugs.They have hung up promptly by then.[Reply]
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the problem is once they have your number they pass it around even the no call register doesnt help with them. I have had some fun with these tho i dont get the virus calls i keep getting calls from a group claiming safety certs are corrupted ask them how they know this and they say my computer is sending packets to them. best thing is when i ask them what system they are recieving this from tell me its windows so i come back with but im running a mac and cant afford the internet lol.
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I have used all the old responses – whistle blowing down the line, reasoning with them, leaving the phone unattended, making no response, pretending I am being attacked etc etc.
The trouble is that they do not just ring once a week, or even once a day. It has now reached harrassment levels of 6 times a day, and later in the evening. iiNet have been wonderful in assisting with this phone matter, as being an older senior, I have nearly gone out of my mind.
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Best way to respond to this is to mention that it it interesting that they call from Microsoft, because you run Linux. They are confused and they hang up.
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I get these things all the time and there’s a bunch of youtube videos showing exactly what they’ll do to convince you you have viruses… usually opening the event viewer and lying about what various results mean.
Depending on my mood at the time I’ll either hang up, put them on hold and walk away or abuse them then hang up. They make nigerian scammers look good because your own greed works against you in Nigerian scams but this scam works on innocent people who simply don’t know any better.
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