Those Microsoft scammers are getting nasty.

Forums › Off topic › Those Microsoft scammers are getting nasty.

kiwifidget

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#210500 30-Mar-2017 09:42

How much do they really know about you?

I got called by one a couple of days ago and I told him I knew what he was up to.

I called him a nasty little criminal and a few other names, but I wasn't vulgar, nor did I swear.

His response was that he knew where I lived and he was going to rape me.

I hung up but he rang back twice more, I let it go to answer phone.

The number on my caller-ID is 023597628.

Should I be worried?

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#1750567 30-Mar-2017 09:47

No.

DarthKermit

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#1750568 30-Mar-2017 09:48

Most of them are overseas, yes?

trig42

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#1750569 30-Mar-2017 09:53

I've had one threaten to kill me after I called him out and told him he was a liar and a thief (never swore at him).

Seems they don't like being called liars - must be quite the insult in India? He fired right up.

kiwifidget

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#1750575 30-Mar-2017 09:57

Yeah, pretty sure I called him a liar somewhere in the mix.

It was the fact he was able to ring me back twice that got me wondering about my safety.

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Jaxson

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#1750580 30-Mar-2017 10:02

kiwifidget:

It was the fact he was able to ring me back twice that got me wondering about my safety.

He rang you the first time though right?

So he has your number, so they can call as often as they want unless you get that number blocked.

Must say, having ditched the land line many years ago, we've not missed it at all.

On a much lesser annoyance scale, we don't get rung by the local newspaper wanting to sign us up every other week also.

scuwp

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#1750583 30-Mar-2017 10:08

I seriously doubt they can do anything from the other side of the world. That said, and as annoying as they are, surely it doesn't hurt to simply politely decline and hang up? At the very least it will prevent them spamming your number with multiple follow up calls.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

Coil

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#1750585 30-Mar-2017 10:09

Jaxson:

kiwifidget:

It was the fact he was able to ring me back twice that got me wondering about my safety.

On a much lesser annoyance scale, we don't get rung by the local newspaper wanting to sign us up every other week also.

Letter of cease and desists works well in those cases, Did for us against the Northern Advocate thats for sure!

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michaelmurfy

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#1750592 30-Mar-2017 10:15

I hear so many stories from the victims (I work for a bank) who are often elderly. I do my best to get their money back but still, (the scammers) are nasty pieces of work. I was speaking to a victim last night who fell for the reverse scam via a popup on her computer and thought something was a little odd and was in tears. I would put the money that I have personally reversed now total due to these scams at around $50k which believe it or not is quite low. These scammers often only take so much as to try to not alert to banks systems.

But the stories I have heard... Some of them are rather horrible. There was one case where a IRD scammer said he would be putting the elderly womans grandson in jail if she didn't pay up, others where their computers were trashed. I sometimes phone these scammers up and let them connect to a VM to mess with them for a hour or so why I do other things only to prevent them from scamming other people in that time.

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Jaxson

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#1750596 30-Mar-2017 10:23

Want to echo that as well Michael. Only yesterday I fielded an enquiry from my parents, who had somehow opened a browser page that was telling them to call Microsoft quickly as their computer was being hacked. Just a sound file playing but to many it's scary and concerning. In my parents case they had a couple of people able to assist and advise them quickly, but many are not as fortunate to have that backup on hand.

This and bullying in schools has me quite angry. Vulnerable people shouldn't have to put up with this.

As is the question of this thread, many are unsure of how much they really know about you. In practise it's just a phishing phone call operation, mostly to landlines, so most often they don't know anything about you at all, especially given most phone numbers are public and freely available. And as others have mentioned, they're usually calling from overseas anyway.

gzt

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#1750621 30-Mar-2017 11:06

kiwifidget:
How much do they really know about you?

I got called by one a couple of days ago and I told him I knew what he was up to.

I called him a nasty little criminal and a few other names, but I wasn't vulgar, nor did I swear.

His response was that he knew where I lived and he was going to rape me.

I hung up but he rang back twice more, I let it go to answer phone.

The number on my caller-ID is 023597628.

Should I be worried?

Probably not. These scams are all based overseas and they call many numbers per day.

It's unlikely the scammer even knew your name, and most likely did not even know the address.

Next time one of these calls me i'll play along for a bit then say something like ok do you have my address on file for verification? I'm sure they don't, but the next few times i will sample to find out

That all said, all threats of that nature should be reported to the police.

Geektastic

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#1750625 30-Mar-2017 11:23

I never get these calls, but then I have no landline and screen calls to my mobile as a matter of habit - anything I do not recognise goes to VM for me to decide legitimacy.

What do they want you to sign up to?

Rikkitic

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#1750650 30-Mar-2017 12:32

I have had my share of these calls and I played with some of them until I got tired of it. I agree that actual threats of harm should be reported to the police, even if the police cannot do anything about it. You have a number, and even if it is disposable you never know what the future may bring and it might become evidence at some point. The threat of violence is a crime here, even if it does comes from overseas, and it is better to get it on record.

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Oblivian

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#1750679 30-Mar-2017 13:30

kiwifidget:

How much do they really know about you?

I got called by one a couple of days ago and I told him I knew what he was up to.

I called him a nasty little criminal and a few other names, but I wasn't vulgar, nor did I swear.

His response was that he knew where I lived and he was going to rape me.

I hung up but he rang back twice more, I let it go to answer phone.

The number on my caller-ID is 023597628.

Should I be worried?

Thats very similar to one I bloked on my Fritz last week for attempting the same. Searching it found lots more with hits, however if you geo check. One says its a 2deg number range?!??. The other was Maldives if it had a intl code ahead. But unlike the others I've had the CID only listed it as a local 023 and not full number.

So are they using local SIMs and racking up free nationals via a proxy, or CID spoofing.

Shindig

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#1750703 30-Mar-2017 13:58

Go and watch some of the youTube videos, where they scam the windows scammers. They will use all the expletives under the sun, and threat a whole manner of things.

The little things make the biggest difference.

BTR

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#1750741 30-Mar-2017 15:18

Best solution to this is not to have a landline and screen ALL calls, if I don't know the number I don't answer. If its important they will leave a message.

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