Got a call from this number. Someone with what appeared to be an Indian accent asked for a former employee. When told that the person no longer worked for us, he slammed the phone down without saying another word.
Got a call from 312-263-8166 from an Indian caller saying that he was from Microsoft and that one of our computers had errors and sending viruses. My husband then proceeding to tell him that we had 15 and asked which one it was he responded "the oldest one". My husband then realized it was a scam and hung up.
My mother had been receiving calls from this number, every day for a few weeks, telling them not to call back each and every time. They finally called back at a point in time that I myself was there. Being a technician for over eight years myself, while not letting them know that information, I let him continue on with telling me how that my computer, not my mother's, was fatally virus ridden. I asked if he could tell me the name, MAC address, or even the IP address of the computer that was infected, he replied that he did not have access to that information. Curious, but I let him continue with telling what I needed to do, all while miming keystrokes to the pleasure of his ear. It was at this point that I realized that his scam was not of the "Botnet Army" type of scam, but a monetary scam aimed towards those who know very little about computer systems. He instructed me towards a website (Which no longer exists as of me typing this) to download AMMYY, which is a very legitimate and useful remote access program that many legitimate support companies use. When I feigned ignorance as to what the program does, he replied that it would allow his "Expert" to access my computer, and "fix" the errors that were being shown to me. I then proceeded to act as though I had my doubts as to the legitimacy of his claims, to which he politely asked my if I would like to speak with his supervisor, which he transferred me to. The supervisor then explained to me, in extremely simple and dare I say condescending terms, how it was that they had become aware of my system's infection on such a massive level. He told me that their company has numerous servers across the United States, that would monitor every system that ran a Windows based operating system. When I pressed further the question of how they exactly knew that my computer was compromised, he replied that their servers would show my IP address blinking red, then they would look on file to see which phone number to call for the person whose computer was infected.(Curiously as it were, at this point I asked him what would they do if someone who owned said computer had never registered a phone number, or had built the PC themselves, and never registered any piece of software involved, to which he told me that no matter what they could contact the person) I also asked him if he could relay that IP address to me so that I could know that I was actually my system that was compromised, he responded that he did not have to do that, as he had the address right in front of him, and that it was illegal for him to speak "my" IP adress over the phone. I told him okay, that I was ready to complete the process, at which point I was "transferred" back to the first person. I had told the man that I was ready and had installed the program as requested(I had not.) He then asked me for my credit card information. To which I happily gave him the number and security code of an old prepaid Visa card that had a grand total of $0.3 cents left on it, to which he attempted to make a charge of $299, plus $50 that would be charged after the "Services" had been rendered, in able to ensure my "Protection" against the evils of the internet. When the charge was rejected, via PayPal, in less than thirty seconds, he told me that my payment method was "Not good. You credit card bad" It was at this point that I decided that the jig was up, it was time for my own idea of internet born and bred justice. At that time, I had been on the phone with them for over an hour, and just decided that, while I had not wasted near enough of their time to make them think hard about their own life choices, that I had wasted enough of mine, even though I had to stifle fits of laughter at their apparent lack of technological knowledge, I gave the man the knowledge that I was an actual Microsoft certified technician. As well that I knew that an operation they were claiming to have in technically impossible at current technology levels. I told him that I was reporting his number to various federal agencies, which he acted like scared him, even though they aren't based in America. I told him to never call that number again, to which they thankfully have not done.
A simple act of "Trolling" or stringing them along for a little bit, will make them a lot less eager to ever call you back, than to ask them politely, or even angrily. Play them as they play others, but not for the money they exact from their victims, but some slight enjoyment of making a textbook criminal waste time on a troll, as opposed to allowing them that time to scam another innocent person.
In early October a Friend in this retirement community received a call from "Mike" in the "technology department of Microsoft," who said there was a virus in Friend's computer and Mike would fix it for him. Friend was guided to allow the caller to have remote access to his computer. After a long time on the line, Friend ended the call and said he would call back later. Mike still had access to the computer. A short time later, Friend's computer crashed. A computer know-how person got Friend's computer working again, said it was chock full of viruses. Mike happened to call back while computer person was working on computer; computer person pretended to be Friend's son which indicated the senior citizen victim had a contact who knew what was going on.
Friend does not believe any of his accounts have been accessed or that he has lost any money because of the bogus call. It's possible the aim of the caller was to get Friend to fork over money to have him get the computer back in order again.
November 11, I received a call from a person with a heavy Indian accent. (Mike had an accent but not a heavy one.) Caller ID said my call was from Amanda Hunczak, 904 287 2881. Caller said error messages were showing up in my computer. Because of Friend's experience, I said some unkind words to caller and hung up. Don't know whether this caller was in cahoots with Mike or if they had separate operations. I was concerned that these calls were targeting our retirement community because senior citizens are more vulnerable to scams. I later heard of another resident here who received a call about trouble with his computer, although he doesn't own a computer.
On November 25, I received a call from "Mike in the technology department in ..." I cut him off right there, told him he was a crook, and hung up on him. I am still disturbed by the frequency of these calls about computer problems coming to residents of this retirement community.