Bogus caller!!

Hi

Had a call today from some ethnic guy telling me I had a virus on my PC

I asked if he was calling from Virgin and he said we work for all ISP's

He wanted me to go to my PC were he could show me were the virus was, I knew something wasn't right about this call in the first few seconds but I went along with it curious what he was going to show me

I said if you know I have a virus then you know the IP of the machine so what is it because I have 6 PC's and 2 laptops, he couldn't tell me but he asked me to go to any PC just to show me this virus

Then he asked me to go to Team Viewer website, straight away I said "Your not connecting to my PC", I then asked him for his name and contact number to verify with Virgin but I could not understand his surname asked him to spell it but still could not understand, I then put the phone down

Google it and found some websites about this apparently they pretend to remove a virus and charge you for it taking payment over the phone, Its scary to think how many poeple would actually fall for this

If anyone gets a call like this please make sure you hurl abuse down the phone these people are the scum of the earth

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Comments

Devilsbane

Phishing schemes have just gotten more advanced. To any of us, this is a no brainer. But to someone like my mom or something she'd be in a panic.

Ahriakin

Yup these have been happening for a while, much more popular in Europe up until now.

MentholMoose

Interesting scam. I wouldn't be surprised if most people they call actually do have viruses on their PC! If they clean it up, at least there is some legitimacy in what they are doing. However I also wouldn't be surprised if the caller added trojans or other malware to your PC.

Priston

You should have told him you don't have a PC.

mikedisd2

Some of the guys at work have received these calls. Must be a global assault. As mentioned above, many people will fall for this.

MentholMoose

The sad thing is that these kind of scams hurt the credibility of people legitimately trying to help, such as REN-ISAC. I work for a college and we get emails from them warning about PCs on our network that are on various botnets (there are thousands of student-owned devices, so infections are inevitable).

SteveLord

Wow.....never heard about this kind of thing before.

rwmidl

You should have said "But I have a Mac"!!

arwes

Weird. The only thing I've ever had that's remotely like this is jerks calling about printer supplies. Some woman called and chewed out my receptionist demanding to speak to the IT dept, and she freaked out because she thought it was a bank (we're owned by a bunch of them). If I'd known that before she cold transferred I would've jumped on the lady. She wanted to know how much toner we go through in a months, and I just told her that we're under contract with Xerox for all our supplies and she never called back lol.

exampasser

rwmidl wrote: »

You should have said "But I have a Mac"!!

1+, I thought about saying something like that lol.

tpatt100

They probably were hoping your an elderly person who is not tech savvy

aquilla

I've been called 3 or 4 times by someone claiming to be from Microsoft and advising me that I had a "sophisticated" virus on my PC which is not detected by normal AV software and that only they can remove it. The first couple of times I told them to *&%$ off.

The next time they called I decided to see how long I could keep them on the phone. They explained that my system had a virus - to which I responded "which one? I have three". Stunned silence for a few seconds and then they repeated the statement, to which I replied with the same statement. Then they tried phrasing the question slightly differently. I then asked them to give me some piece of identifiable information before I would like them on my PC (that was never going to happen in a million years but it gave them hope). I then got transferred to a "supervisor" who started the routine all over again.

I told them I was willing to help them if they could give me some identifiable information (IP address / Windows ver / etc). He obviously got annoyed with me because he transferred me to a "senior tech". When he came on the line I asked him how they traced me to which I got the usual spiel of "it's a sophisticated virus sir, we need to get rid of it".

In the end I told them all my systems were Linux based and to *&%$ off and don't bother me again.

I think I managed to keep them on the line for about 20 minutes going around in circles.

Strangely I haven't had a call back since.

brianeaglesfan

Nice one.

shaqazoolu

It's called remote social engineering. Some companies pay to have their employees tested for these types of things. I have to do it occasionally. I don't really care for it because I think I'm horrible at it, but as bad as I think I am, people still fall for it.

laidbackfreak

Yep these have been doing the rounds for a while now, but have started to increase again as the hit rate is good.
Personally someone calls me and tells me I have a virus on my PC, I just say yes I know I write them

Soon shuts them up lol

WilliamK99

My MIL got this call and my wife contacted me and I told her they were full of crap and not to give out any information. The problem is, many people fall for this type of scam, which is why education is the key...

Mojo_666

The Beeb Have a story running about this.

BBC News - Warning over anti-virus cold-calls to UK internet users