After dealing with the aftermath of a scammer, I decided to write a spot the scammer post.
So the tell tail signs are.
1. A caller with an Indian accent calling themselves Peter / John / Emma etc – While this is plausible it’s generally a scammer.
2. If someone is calling from the “Windows” department – We can see suspicious things happening on your computer. There is no such thing as “Windows” department – Microsoft do not call you and do not monitor your computer.
3. Saying things like the police are on their way to arrest you. The last time I checked Mircosoft / Norton etc none of them have the right to get the police to your house.
4. Calling to say we owe you money (When you signed up for your AV do you remember putting your telephone number in?) I doubt it. So how do they know your number?
Things to do.
1. Just hang up
2. If you are engaging with them, say something like “I will need to get the office tech support to deal with you” (They will hang up for you)
3. Do not download any remote control software, this is how they will scam you. (Some ISP’s have blocked traffic from Anydesk, VNC etc. to stop this scam)
4. If you are concerned that something is up with your computer, call your local IT company or someone you know who can take a look to put your mind at rest.
Most popular scam out at the moment is the scammers calling from Norton or some other AV company saying we owe you money, they will connect to your machine, have you log into your bank.
They then look at your balance, if there is £30,000.00 in there, they will tell you they owe you £300.00, they then blank your screen, Edit the local HTML of the website and show a transfer of £30,000.00 showing your balance of £60,000, then give some story about how they put too many zero’s and there and there manager will fire them if you don’t transfer the £29,700.00 back.
Personally when I get these calls, I string them out for at least 30mins (When I am doing this, they are not scamming someone else)