Old Scam making a comeback

Recently, I got a phone call from someone with a foreign accent claiming that they were from Microsoft and that my computer was being used for nefarious puproses, etc.. I couldn't understand exactly what the person said at the time (plus they woke me from a nap so I was groggy), but I hung up on them. I know that Microsoft does not call people.

Anyway, I take care of my elderly, handicapped mother. She answered her phone recently and could not understand what the person on the line was saying, so she asked me to pick up the phone and talk to the guy. When I did, I asked the guy to repeat himself. This guy (probably the same person) was saying something like that they've tracked some hacker that has cracked my mom's computer and was using it do something or other. This time I yelled at the guy. I told him that I know that Microsoft does NOT call their customers and again hung up.

Anyway, I wanted to confirm that this was a scam, so I went to Snopes.Com to confirm it (since they've given me good info in the past about hoaxes and scams in the past). Here's what I found:
http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/microsoft.asp

 

But how do you know you aren't infected with the Amish Virus? He may have been trying to save you.

 

This method is intended to defraud old people like your mother.

Thankfully, his foreign accent was too thick for her to understand.

 

What these scammers are exploiting is a principle called social engineering. They try to be convincing enough that you fall into their net and do as you're told. A rather well-known statement on the Internet made by a certain scammer went "I social engineer people because there's no real patch for human gullibility/stupidity/whatever." Anyone can fall for this kind of thing if they don't think through why they got such calls/info/etc. Personally, I think it's really low. The Nigerian Prince/online lottery/inheritance scams also fall under this category. The problem is, people don't try to learn about the commonly used scams, thinking that it won't happen to them, but it doesn't really work that way, now does it? A little knowledge can prevent a lot of things when combined with common sense. First-time users of computers and the internet would be wary to learn of such things. Pointing this out because I've studied these methods and how they work as part of my forensic sciences course.

 

Sadly all too common on this side of the world as well. The first time I got one it was blatantly obvious that it was a scam, as every box here was Linux-based. Definitely a "warn the parents" one, though.

 

The general problem in this case is that most people, for some unfathomable reason, blindly trust people with whom they are talking via phone. Had they talked eye-to-eye, they would at least require something to convince them, but when they are calling, most people get convinced very quickly without requiring any sort of proof or whatnot, as if the fact that someone called them specifically was a proof enough (which is stupid, come to think of it, because there are situations when someone dials a wrong number, so the person calling might not even had originally attempted to call us).

 

A lot of people are very trusting -- trust can be a good personality trait, except when others try to take advantage of it. I've been partly innoculated to this sort of thing, due my interest in skepticism, and personal experience, reading etc. But just to be clear -- almost anyone can be conned under the right (or more precisely, wrong) circumstances.

The reason is that people WANT to believe that the person on the phone or at their door or in the infomercial is as nice as they seem to be and is worthy of trust and is not lying to them. People want to believe that IF the person talking to them were lying, that they could tell just by the tone of their voice or their smile. They want to believe that they are smarter than the stranger that approaches them, or that the person who is treating them so nicely is a potential friend. They want to believe that the free PC help they are getting is a windfall.

This goes beyond traditional scams, but James Randi, who is a retired magician, and professional debunker of all sorts of alternative medicine and psychic phenomena and UFOs and so on. He has stated numerous times that sometimes the people that are easiest to fool (with certain types of scams) are scientists, because their profession is totally based on open sharing of data, so they are not used to being fooled or lied to.

 

An easy way to cut right to the heart of the matter is to tell them right off the bat that the phone call is being recorded.

99.9% of scammers with instantly hang-up when you say those words. It is like an invocation that magically severs the line from their side. Those that do not are stupid, but it works very well, and it need not be true.

 

Downside is that it makes legitimate calls awkward.

"Good morning sir, I'm calling from Microsoft regarding the prob-"
"THIS CALL IS BEING RECORDED"

 

Legitimate telemarketers and such have no fears of being recorded. They may wonder why you bothered to tell them at most.

 

Actually, "legitimate" help-desk callers are being recorded by their companies already, and it is pretty much common knowledge. So for most of them, it is irrelevant whether you do record anything or not.

 

Is there really such a thing as a 'legitimate telemarketer'? I guess if you grade them on a curve, then yes, there would have to be.

Anyway, both my mom and I are on the 'do not call' list, but we still regularly get calls. Since I live in an orthodox Jewish community, the majority of the calls I get are from Jewish organizations and are often in Yiddish. We even have people coming to the door that do not speak English (generally, they speak Hebrew or Yiddish or even Russian). The people who come to the door are mostly looking for charitable donations (trying to get family members to the U.S. or pay for a medical procedure, or whatever). If they don't speak English, they sometimes have these pre-printed pieces of paper that explain their story. 99.99% of them are old men with long beards, and traditional Chasid dress (my neighborhood is not Chasid, but there is a large Chasid community nearby). They are usually very surprised that I can't speak Yiddish, since neighborhood is predominantly orthodox.

One big help recently to me is that I had to replace a very old land-line phone, and I found that the technology had changed a bit since the last time I had to purchase one. The one I got, actually was able to block certain phone numbers. Essentially, I could store a number that was incoming as a blocked number, and from then on, whenever they call me, they get a busy signal. The number of unwanted phone calls that I receive has dropped significantly.

 

BTW, one other thing -- there are lots of so-called 'legitimate' telemarketers that are less than honest and though they may not overtly lie, they make their business using deceptive practices (these are not isolated to phone solicitors, but also snail-mail). For example, they will identify themselves as 'credit card services' and talk about your credit rating or interest rates or outstanding balance, when in fact, they do not actually represent your credit card company. Your credit card company will identify themselves usually by the bank or whatever company issues the card -- if you have a Chase card, then the solicitor will say they are from Chase, etc.). There's similar scams (and I do consider them scams since they are based on misleading the customer) that have to do with auto warranties, phone services, utility companies, and so on. It's not so much that they lie, but that their business model is based almost completely on confusing the customer into who it is they are doing business with.

 

https://www.callcentric.com/

I got on this last month through an SPA3102 plugged directly into my router. I was on the "Lifeline" service through AT&T, but that sickened me that the average tax-payers were having to pay the $30 every month for me to have a phone, and it was still costing me $15 every month. So I bought the SPA3102 and I expect the money *I* save with Callcentric will pay for the device in five months. And in the meantime, no tax-payer has to pay the crooked bastards at AT&T ten times what it should cost for a fucking phone line. Win-Win.

I could bore you to tears on how I configured the device and the service, but suffice it to say that defaults were almost perfect, and Callcentric has a page for How to configure the device I bought.

I have a new number, and I have not had *ONE* call from anyone I do not know. But if I ever did, like you I can block that number for all time with a few buttons. Fuck plain copper phone lines now. This is cheaper, and works much better.

The only issue it has is that it required Internet access to operate. I set the MAC address of my SPA3102 to "High Priority" for all packets via my Linksys WRT54GL router and it works. Since 99% of the packets it send are UDP, they will never be resent if lost, whereas 99% of what your PC uses to communicate with sites and download stuff is TCP and will be resent if lost. Thus it harms nothing to set the SPA3102 to higher priority, and benefits you too.

There *ARE* cheaper options than Callcentric. But I do not trust most companies. I know someone who went with them over a year ago and they have been very reasonable. If you do not buy a "Monthly" plan, you pay per minute, and it is rounded. You are required to put "Credit" on the service, but it can be as little as $5. And they do not vampire you to death with stupid fees like every other company.

I know I am off subject here, but hop on the bandwagon. You will appreciate it in time with saved money.

If you are paying 'Ma Bell or AT&T the asinine fees they charge for phone service, look into this. It cannot cost more. /end rant

 

Is it really that bad overseas?
I pay 25€ for internet, phone and mobile here (monthly). I get a true internet flat with 6k speed (has been very constant for me, no trouble yet and speed is always where it should be), a flat for calling other landlines and pretty low prices for mobile calls. For my mobile, I also have a landline flat and decent prices for SMS and mobile calls.
I could pay a bit more for a faster connection, but I don't see why. It's perfect for streaming, gaming and I don't mind downloading taking a bit longer, especially since you often get limited by the server anyway.

 

On that note, I do another little trick that works wonders. If ever contacted by a "Representative" of a financial institution or business that should already know who I am, I DO NOT identify myself. If they do not know whom they are calling, they are clearly a scammer. If they ask for me by name, and then ask if I can confirm (Insert information they should already have here.) then I tell them I do not disclose information they can use against me unless I actually know who they are. They usually respond by saying they already told me whom they are. To which I reply that I am Abraham Lincoln. And they can verify that just as easily as I can verify their story.

I usually look up the website of the company they claim to represent and ask them to confirm the phone number on the site. Most proper institutions have a universal number they can be contacted through. If they cannot give me the correct number, or are a call center in some phone slave sweatshop in a part of the world that does not respect the workers enough to give them the correct information, then I just hang up.

When I was using AT&T I would regularly get calls from "Chase Bank" regarding my account. But I have never had an account with Chase. So I tried to stretch the conversation as long as possible before informing them that a copy of the recording of the call as well as the number will be forwarded to the FCC. That usually got them to panic and tell me that is was not necessary. I never had any recording devices hooked up to the phone though. But I did send the details of what scam they were attempting and what time of day they called every time. Sadly, I never had Caller-ID with AT&T so I could not give anything more detailed than *MY* number and the time they called and the duration of the call. The FCC can find the details with ease if they cared.

The few times a caller sounded like a scammer and was actually just a slave working a telephone sweatshop for a massive company I was able to call the main number of the business and determine what they were calling about. I never got to speak to the poor slave, but I complained loudly about the fact that they hire call centers in Nations without proper care for the workers and never bothered to give them the contact information for those like myself.

 

Yes. It really is. AT&T is a fucking monster with thousands of lobbyists and millions of dollars worth of "Political Donations" (Bribes) to keep them in power.

I pay $120 every month for Internet and Cable television for my mother. Of that, $50-60 is the Internet side of things. It is a petty 10 megabits per second downsream with a 256 kilobits per second upstream. The upstream is where it really hurts.

The sad truth is that the only reason they have such awful caps on the speed is that it is artificial inflation, thus people think it is worth more because they cap it and pretend like there is not enough to go around. I know better. They have a DOCSIS 3.0 network via Coaxial Cable. They could double my downstream side and multiply by ten my upstream side and have plenty of real estate left. And they would make no less profit by doing this.

This is the same sort of racket that petroleum conglomerates do when they have tankers full of millions of gallons of oil sitting ten miles off shore for weeks or even months at a time. They are simply price fixing. That is Illegal here in America, but they too have lobbyists and billions to throw at corrupt politicians to let them get away with it.

 

As bad as AT&T is now, they were hundreds of times worse back before their monopoly was split up, and anyone who's old enough to remember will be able to confirm that. They are one of several companies that I will never willingly do business with, simply because I have a long memory.

 

I remember. But that is a good analogy. However the "Break-up" was just for show. They operate in conjunction despite being broken up into several parts. They share information, and are unable to be reasoned with in any situation.

I too will never pay AT&T another cent.