Page 1 of Just been called by the "Windows Helpdesk"!!!!

Just had a nice Asian chap call me up to explain that he was calling from the Windows Helpdesk and that they had detected some malicious traffic from my Windows PC and he was calling to help me sort it out! 
How kind! I told him. Then told him that I run Linux though (I don`t) and he hung up! Lol

They rang my missus twice the other week. If I answer the phone I`m going to tell them they can log on to my PC and the ip address is 127.0.0.1 and see what happens.

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Could someone please
Remove these cutleries
From my knees...

Was the number withheld?

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I`ve had to school these morons twice in the last week or so. Honestly, do they think people are stupid enough to fall for these scams? Oh, wait, some people are...

Yeah it was a "number unavailable" jobbie

A work mate had this call last week & being relatively new to computing, fell for it :(

What did they get him to do?

What did they get him to do?

They told him to alter some settings & hacked into everything he had on there (sorry to sound a bit vague, but he was really p****d off about it when I last spoke to him).

Like I say, he is a total newbie to computers, so even if they were only half convincing on the phone, he would have taken it as 100% genuine :/

from what I`ve read elsewhere, they get you to install software suck as vnc client/ got netmeeting style software and/or keyloggers etc which they say will help you clean up your PC, but obviously don`t :(

http://www.digitaltoast.co.uk/supportonclick-systemrecure-scam

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/18/phone-scam-india-call-centres

This item was edited on Monday, 6th September 2010, 22:27

Just be carefull what you say to these call centers and never give any details, if in doubt hangup.

I got a genuine phone call from SANTANDER recently (I did not believe it was genuine at the time) and kept saying to them you are scammers and your not getting any info from me, and hungup, They rang six times while I was in, and I said to them `you banks tell people never to accept any coldcall phonecalls as genuine, write to me`

Only when i got sent a letter from Santander, to go to my local branch, did I actually go and find out the problem. I was asked why I would not answer a phone call and told them why, and gave them a letter of complaint saying that they were phoning me at all hours, but I thought it was a scam by the tone of the conversation, asking for personal details etc.

MORAL of the tale : It is better to be safe than sorry, and do not divulge info to anyone on phone, if you have any doubts at all about the call being genuine.