May 9, 2013
I received calls yesterday and today with caller ID (2c3) 429-a4cb. Yes, letters and numbers. It was from this company. I knew it was a scam so I kept them on the line for over 40 minutes messing with them. They told me they were with Software Maintenance Technologies in Sugarland, TX. When I asked for a call-back number, they gave me 801-512-0135. I am an IT professional for 30 years and work in the security area, so I knew they were trying something, so I continued to keep them on the line for as long as possible. As several of the others have found out, they walk you through several things on your computer and have you bring up the Event Viewer and take you to a section that normally has errors, and tell you this is the evidence you are infected. They then want you to go to the Internet to a screen sharing site so they can take over your computer to fix it. So I started asking how they knew I was infected and how they tracked me down. I first told them I have a Microsoft service agreement, but they made up the stupid story that Microsoft makes the hardware, ie the computer, screens, keyboards, etc. and they make and support the Windows. I know there is no way to identify a particular person and the phone they happen to be sitting by, I asked if they could tell me my name. No, privacy reasons. How about my computer name, nope, more privacy reasons, but they could tell me my SSID (a unique number for each computer) but then they had me run something that returns the same number no matter what computer you are on. When I questioned their phone number, they said it was toll free. I told them no, 801 is in Utah. But they said they were in Texas. They changed and said their call center was in Utah. I do believe they are in India with Internet forwarded numbers. I finally just started insulting them, their mother, their business etc., telling them to get an honest job and stop scamming people.
I reported all of this to my contacts in different parts of law enforcement and the investigation has started.
Can you believe someone else from there called me today? I would have thought they'd flag my number as do not call.