Virus scammers

[wv62]

I've just had a phone call from an asian guy telling me that I had a virus on my computer. According to him whenever anyone connects to the internet they connect to a central internet server called the WWW server. My PC then tells this central internet server that I have a virus and that server then informs Microsoft and then I get a phone call. He then wanted remote access to my PC so that he could 'fix' it. After playing along with him for a while I decided to explain to him that there's no such thing as a 'central internet server'. He was insistant that all the internet came from this one server and that it was reporting my virus. I explained to him how the internet worked, that servers are located all over the world, that if I wanted I could set up my own PC as a server, that the IP address that he said was reporting my virus is the standard IP of the internal network of nearly all routers (192.168.0.xxx) and not the IP I connect to the net with. After a while he hung up. 1471 returned the callers number as 02035298888 which doesn't exist.

So, if you get a call telling you there's something wrong with YOUR computer, tell them to p**s off and hang up.

 

[Astra99]

Don't forget this could well be another way of getting funding for the murderous islamic terrorists. I would suggest that anyone and everyone who gets one of these calls should immediately report it to the police, even going to the extent of using 999.

 

[Monkeh]

Don't forget this could well be another way of getting funding for the murderous islamic terrorists. I would suggest that anyone and everyone who gets one of these calls should immediately report it to the police, even going to the extent of using 999.

Please don't suggest such a stupid thing as calling 999 over a simple scam.

 

[bernardgreen]

No do NOT report these to the police. Unless you have any means of positively identifying the caller there is nothing the police can do.

If you are busy when the call happens just hang up. If you are looking for something to do play along and keep the caller busy. DO NOT do anything he or she asks you to do, just pretend you are. That way you are stopping him or her calling someone else. That someone else may believed the spiel and do what the caller wants them to. Prevent that call and you are helping to stop the spread more harmful viruses

 

[Diyisfun]

I had a call couple of days ago claiming to be TalkTalk, wanted me to sit at the computer & do things.
I said I am computer literate & the call is being recorded & I don't believe you are TalkTalk, if you want to carry on please do so. The call ended.
I called TalkTalk, they did not seem concerned & said they were aware of the scam, I did ask 'why not be proactive & email all there customers, again did not seem interested .
I believe there are many people out there that allow these scammers, because they sound convincing. It's the Asian ascent that gives them away...

 

[jj4091]

Been having loads of calls from these numbers recently so we bought a call blocker, it works well & had no problems since.

 

[JBR]

I had one of these 'your computer has a virus, let us take control of it' scams a couple of weeks ago. I would normally tell them to pi$$ off but, as I had time on my hands, I played the innocent including naive questions and surprised expressions.
I kept him talking for some time, but he persisted as he thought he'd hooked an easy catch. After I thought he might give up, I convinced him that someone was at the door and offered to call him back. Surprisingly, he gave me his name and number although I realise that these were false.
Needless to say, I didn't call back but, instead, called these people:

http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

who took all the details I had and assured me that they would do all they could.
Unbelievably, the scamming idiot called me back later and, on this occasion, I did tell him to pi$$ off.

I'm confident that these people will never take advantage of me, but what annoys me is that there are many older people out there who are, unfortunately, easy targets.

 

[Rider]

I'm confident that these people will never take advantage of me, but what annoys me is that there are many older people out there who are, unfortunately, easy targets.

Older can mean that we have been on the Internet for twenty years or so, are wiser in general and less likely to be scammed than others.

It might be thought that on balance it is older people who are more likely to fall for a scam but being older myself, I wouldn't agree. It's just that the News is more likely pick up on it happening to someone who is older, so giving the impression all old people can't look after themselves. I'm fairly sure that scammed older people would be balanced out by a similar number of younger, less experienced computer users who would fall for scams too.

You should have heard my wife having a go at a scammer! ..I just throw my virtual walking frame at them.

 

[JBR]

I'm confident that these people will never take advantage of me, but what annoys me is that there are many older people out there who are, unfortunately, easy targets.

Older can mean that we have been on the Internet for twenty years or so, are wiser in general and less likely to be scammed than others.

It might be thought that on balance it is older people who are more likely to fall for a scam but being older myself, I wouldn't agree. It's just that the News is more likely pick up on it happening to someone who is older, so giving the impression all old people can't look after themselves. I'm fairly sure that scammed older people would be balanced out by a similar number of younger, less experienced computer users who would fall for scams too.

You should have heard my wife having a go at a scammer! ..I just throw my virtual walking frame at them.

I take your point, but I really meant people substantially older than me. I'm 63. I envisaged people like my mother-in-law (83) who, although she is a keen computer user and has picked things up very quickly, would be quite likely to believe a convincing caller who warned her that her computer is 'infected'.

Similarly, I also agree with your assertion about younger people although in my experience school children often seem to know more than many adults when it comes to computers!

I'm afraid that my wife is almost the complete antithesis of your good lady: to my chagrin, she quietly and politely informs them that we don't deal with cold-callers. No shouting and swearing, no leading them on for 15 minutes (as I did earlier today), no blowing a loud whistle down the line, just a polite apology for not wanting to listen to them.

 

[Rider]

My good lady isn't loud but certainly makes the the person at the other end of the line realise that she knows the call is a scam. Other types of call, then yes, it is just a case of saying that we don't do surveys or anything like them over the phone.

I'm 70 myself and have quite a few computer-using friends and relatives, (some older than me) who I feel would never fall for a scam either. However, I reckon I'm old enough that if I were to get scammed, the media would indeed class me as an old person and infer (or directly say) that the scam happened due to that. This perhaps giving the general impression that older people are easier targets than people in other age-groups.

It's only a general feeling that old people can't look after themselves in technical or computer matters that I try to dispel. It is true that some can't but this is also true of people in any age-group.

All 40, 50, and 60 year old people get to be 70 plus with a bit of luck. When that happens, just think how you'll feel when someone says old people are easier to scam. You'll have had years in computers and an ability to sort out technical matters. I can almost guarantee that if you still have all of your marbles, it will lead to a 'Harrumph! at least.

 

[JBR]

I, too, hope to live to be older than 70... or 80... or...
Well, I can hope.

I agree. There are both able- and novice-computer users of all ages. I think it might be useful for the latter type if there was more advertising (TV, newspapers, magazines) explaining the dangers of replying to scammers, as I'm sure there are still many who fall for them.

And didn't the government recently announce £500,000 fines for companies that conduct such scams? Just another re-election 'promise', I suppose.

 

[Rider]

I believe many of the phone scams come from outside of the UK. I suppose there's not much to be done if the calls come from abroad, apart from people learning how to recognise them and not be intimidated.

The callers can be that way. I had one who said that my computer was infected. I told her it wasn't but she insisted it was. Upon repeating that it wasn't, she told me that she was going to disconnect me from the Internet. She even raised her voice a bit. I can see that some might have felt intimidated enough to go to the next stage. I just said that was OK and to go ahead and do her worst.

We seemed to get a spate of these calls but there hasn't been any for a while now. Hopefully, they have given up.