Ask Bob Rankin - Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 10:22 AM
[ALERT] Fake Tech Support Scammers Are Calling
Fake Tech Support Scams
I've been hearing more and more cases of this tech support phone scam lately.
The caller typically says he's calling on behalf of Microsoft, and tells you
that there's a serious problem with your computer. The supposed "fix" usually
involves configuring your PC to grant the caller remote access to it, or
downloading a program that will fix the problem. And of course, they'll want to
ding your credit card for a couple hundred bucks. That's exactly what my
callers tried to do, before I called their bluff.
What usually happens is that the scammer walks you through a set of steps to
"prove" that your computer is infected. Sometimes they'll have you download a
program that runs a fake scan which shows all sorts of problems. In one case,
my caller had me open a command prompt, and issue the "assoc" command. He then
read me a string of digits and asked if they matched one line of the output.
Bingo, it matched! I knew that string of digits was just the class identifer of
a program that appears on all Windows computers, so it proved nothing. But out
of curiousity, I decided to let him continue.
I asked my caller the name and location of his company. He said he was from
"PCUSA" in Plainview, NY. I quickly googled that, and found that he was either
a Presbyterian, a Communist, or a scammer. Maybe all of the above, but
definitely a scammer. He next transferred me to a supervisor who asked me to
enter the MSCONFIG command, and proceeded to try and convince me that critical
system drivers were stopped.
I should have played along further, but I was so annoyed, I asked him "How can
you sleep at night, when you lie, cheat and steal all day?" After a moment of
stunned silence, Mr. Supervisor angrily cursed me out for "wasting his time"
and hung up on me. I didn't feel bad about wasting a criminal's time, if it
meant he had less time to scam others. Next time, I'll try to have a little
more fun with the caller, maybe ask some personal questions about his family,
or tell him about an amazing opportunity in multi-level marketing.
The goal in all of these scenarios is to scares the victim into paying for a
solution or a subscription to worthless "security" software. In other cases,
the scammer's goal is to steal the victim's financial data or install botnet
software that enslaves the victim's computer.
This scam has been around since 2010, and even though the Federal Trade
Commission has shut down some instances of it, there seems to be no end in
sight. Apparently, that's because it continues to be both successful and
lucrative.
How Big is the Phone Scam Problem?
A Microsoft survey of 7,000 users found that 22 percent of those who received
fake tech support calls followed the instructions they were given. And of those
who fell for the scams, 79 percent reported some sort of financial loss; $875,
on average. Seventeen percent had money taken from their accounts. Nineteen
percent reported compromised passwords. Seventeen percent more were victims of
identity theft. Fifty-three percent said they had "computer problems" following
the fake tech support calls.
According to a 2015 Harris Poll survey, 27 million Americans got taken by phone
scammers the previous year, resulting in an estimated $7.4 billion in losses.
That includes all sort of phone scammers, not just the rogue technicians. You
might think that seniors would be the most likely to get scammed. But actually
it appears that the younger generations, who grew up with tech and don’t view
it skeptically, are more likely to fall for a phone scam than their elders.
Male millennials (age 18-34) had the highest rate of gullibility, with 38%
reporting they’d lost money to phone scams in the past twelve months.
Why, you may ask, do scammers call potential victims instead of sending their
pitches via email, which is a much cheaper and faster way to troll for victims?
There are several reasons. Anti-phishing protections are everywhere these days,
on email servers and users' desktops. The computing public is constantly warned
about the dangers of phishing emails, but more rarely told that a phone call
might be phony. The immediacy of a phone call leaves little time to think,
"Wait, can this be real", especially when the caller is trained to press hard
for immediate action.
If It Happens To You...
Treat any unsolicited phone call as a probable scam, even if it supposedly
comes from a firm you trust. Microsoft does not call Windows users; it
distributes security fixes only via Windows Update.
Never reveal sensitive information, such as a credit card number, to any
unsolicited caller.
Do not visit a website, install software, allow remote access, re-configure
Windows, or follow any other instructions at the insistence of any unsolicited
caller.
Write down the caller's name, company, and contact information. It may very
well be fake, but at least you'll have something to give to the police or other
authorities.
If you fall for a fake tech support scam and later realize your mistake, treat
the incident as a serious security breach. Immediately change all of your
passwords. Uninstall any software that you installed at the caller's behest.
Disable remote access if you enabled it. Call your bank and ask them to remove
the fraudulent charges from your account.
Run a full anti-malware scan, with one of these free antivirus programs. See my
related article System Restore, and follow the instructions there. Monitor your
bank and credit card accounts closely and consider closing them if you detect
any unauthorized transactions.
If you're concerned about identity theft, see my Ten Tips for Identity Theft
Protection.
Have you or someone you know been victimized by fake tech support scammers?
Post your comment or question below...
Article information: AskBobRankin -- [ALERT] Fake Tech Support Scammers Are
Calling (Posted: 24 Jan 2018)
Source:
https://askbobrankin.com/alert_fake_tech_support_scammers_are_calling.html
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David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
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