[RH049]

I'm not trying to waste anyone's time here, but I thought this is just a good reminder. My Friend has a daughter with downs syndrome. The daughter's computer is the only computer in the house and it's used to listen to Alan Jackson videos on YouTube. About a week ago, they get a phone call from some guy claiming to be from Microsoft saying their computer appears to be infected and please go to this web site. They go to the web site and and very shortly the computer freezes. The caller says they can fix it for $500 and asks for their credit card number. Mom says "NO" and hangs up. So now when they try and boot up, a pornographic photo appears and the computer freezes. The "Microsoft" guy phones back two more times requesting money to fix it. Now the computer will not boot. Will not POST. Turn it on and the blue on/off light comes on. The CD tray opens and closes. Black blank screen. That's it. They phone me and at this time, it looks like a boat anchor, or the very least, a high tech coffee cup holder. If there is some way to stop these clowns, it would be great. However, the only thing I can think of is to spread the word that Microsoft is not in the habit of randomly phoning anyone to tell them their computer is infected. Please pass this on to anyone you know.
Thank you for letting me vent.
Have a Merry Christmas everyone.
R

[eddie5659]

Hiya

Thank you for posting this. I was going to move this to the General Security forum, as this has already dissapeared 3 pages down, and its only 2 days since you posted. However, are you still infected, we'll work on that and then maybe create a new thread there, to explain the warning

If you are still infected, can you do the following:

Download OTL to your Desktop

• Double click on the icon to run it. Make sure all other windows are closed and to let it run uninterrupted.
• Click the Quick Scan button. Do not change any settings unless otherwise told to do so. The scan wont take long.
  • When the scan completes, it will open two notepad windows. OTL.Txt and Extras.Txt. These are saved in the same location as OTL.
  • Please copy (Edit->Select All, Edit->Copy) the contents of these files, one at a time and post them in your topic

eddie

[RH049]

Hi Eddie5659

Thank you for your response. Please, by all means, move this to the General Security Forum. And thank you for your suggestion. However, I can't get to the desktop. I press the On button, power goes through the machine so I can open the CD tray, hear a fan run, and that's it. No screen activity, no whirring of disks, not even a dos cursor. My thought is they must have flashed the BIOS. I can't get to it, to the Boot menu, nothing. Can't boot from CD or USB, can't change it if I wanted to.

My plan is to pull the hard drive and pop it into my computer and run a scan with Kaspersky and with Microsoft msert.exe. I may try to fix the master boot record, but I'm dubious that will work. Outside of that, I'm not sure what I'll do, aside from get a new Motherboard.

I'm waiting for these "clowns" (I am trying to be polite here) to phone me. I know they are calling from India, and the website they direct people to is registered in Australia. Local police smile and say "that's too bad. We'll pass this on. Have a nice day." So I thought I would give some type of warning somewhere, and vent a little. These people are targeting the west coast of British Columbia right now. People without a lot of computer know-how or seniors seem to fall prey the most.

So in the mean time, I'm loaning my friends daughter a computer loaded with Ubuntu. I do thank you for the reply. In the next day or two, when I swap out the hard drive, I will try your OTL download and post a copy. And if you can find anything outstanding in there that would help me or others, that would be great.

Have a Merry Christmas Eddie, and thank you again.

R

[eddie5659]

Okay, I'll move this to the Other Security forum. If you do manage to get that log, if you want to create a new thread, and send me the link, I'll take a look at it

eddie

[eddie5659]

Moving this here, and changed the title, so people can be aware of these fraudsters causing problems to computer users

[Terryl]

My daughter had a call from Microsoft to say that her computer is very slow and they would delete the offending files. A funny coincidence since it was slow and I was trying to see why it was slow but did not have much time. I just ran a Mcaffee and a malwarebytes scan but had to go out and leave it. Someone from Microsoft phoned her at home and said that he could fix her computer ? (don't know how he got her number and information). Fortunately, she phoned and asked me whether I asked Microsoft for help which I did not. She luckily disconnected the call and apparently he was trying to phone her again (someone with an Indian accent). I have now warned her after seeing this incident from RHO49.
Terryl.

[eddie5659]

I think I'll stick this at the top, as I don't want this dropping off the page

[sptdhors2012]

This company also called me on Fri. Jan. 6th. Explicity told me they were from Microsft Windows. I asked him over again he said that they were working for Microsoft. I asked for his web address, it was www.thewindowssolution.com
I could see no affiliation with MS, so I hung up on him.

[DataBase]

Funny, someone with an indian accent (i am indian myself) called me suggesting my computer was infected with a virus etc and he asked me for money for his help fixing it. Well i played along to see what would happen, he asked me to enable "remote assistance" i pretended i did it, he then asked me to type in 'ipconfig' and give him various pieces of information, i messed him around for a while saying i couldnt get it to open etc, when he got frustrated he asked for payment to help me further. it was then that i informed him i worked in IT and that my network and computers were perfectly fine. The annoyed 'Microsoft' agent hung up.

I wasnt aware of any other people recieving similar calls, thanks RHo49 for posting this, hopefully others will read this and can avoid the fraud.

[Phantom010]

Originally Posted by Terryl

My daughter had a call from Microsoft to say that her computer is very slow and they would delete the offending files. A funny coincidence since it was slow and I was trying to see why it was slow but did not have much time. I just ran a Mcaffee and a malwarebytes scan but had to go out and leave it. Someone from Microsoft phoned her at home and said that he could fix her computer ? (don't know how he got her number and information). Fortunately, she phoned and asked me whether I asked Microsoft for help which I did not. She luckily disconnected the call and apparently he was trying to phone her again (someone with an Indian accent). I have now warned her after seeing this incident from RHO49.
Terryl.

I don't think they'll call people randomly, just like that. They would look pretty stupid when calling a person who wouldn't happen to own a computer... In my opinion, they must be affiliated with some software vendors on the Web, like the ones who sell Registry Cleaners, Boosters, Optimizers or TuneUp Utilities (often of questionable origins...). If you bought or tried some of them, they have your details (address, name, phone number...). You did say your computer was "coincidently" slow...

[Cookiegal]

Although they may obtain the names and phone numbers through privacy breeches, I believe there is a random aspect as well and they likely use the phone book. I've heard of instances where they've called people who didn't even own a computer.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/on...cy/msname.aspx

[Phantom010]

Originally Posted by Cookiegal

Although they may obtain the names and phone numbers through privacy breeches, I believe there is a random aspect as well and they likely use the phone book. I've heard of instances where they've called people who didn't even own a computer.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/on...cy/msname.aspx

Now that would look pretty stupid!

[Cookiegal]

Originally Posted by Phantom010

Now that would look pretty stupid!

Yeah, I can just picture those people checking their windows and replying "No, they aren't slow. They open and close normally".

[Phantom010]

Originally Posted by Cookiegal

Yeah, I can just picture those people checking their windows and replying "No, they aren't slow. They open and close normally".

[Glaswegian]

I've had a spate of these types of calls over the last 6 weeks or so. They mostly happen during the day but Mrs Glaswegian is well trained. She told one caller that she had just sold the PC. The caller wanted the buyers details but my wife said that she could not provide them because that would breech Data Confidentiality - she then ended the call.

I had one and kept the lady on the call as long as I could but I had to give up when she assured me she was in Birmingham - which was in London! I burst out laughing and had to end the call at that point.

No matter who they are or what they say there is no way they can tell that your computer has any 'errors'. The best advice is to simply end the call immediately.