Jul 20, 2012
I just got off a 30-minute call that came unsolicited from a young-sounding man with a very thick Indian accent who, when I asked him his name, said it was Jason Anderson (doesn’t sound like an authentic name of someone from India).
He told me he was calling me because there had been a lot of complaints in my area about malicious code damaging operating system software and he wanted to be sure my operating system was not impacted.
I’m sure I made his call a nightmare with all the questions I had for him. And after he insulted my intelligence (Him: “that little blinking thing; that is where your letters show up when you type. Look at that please, ma’am.”
I decided I’d just play dumb and go along with him to see what he would have me do. Oh, and I asked a lot of questions along the way to gather as much information about him and his organization as possible.
Here are some key facts about the call:
His phone number is 213-785-8171, but my CID read 971-217-9508 (HOME Secuity). I told him I had to go to a different part of the house to get in front of my computer.
When I called this number someone else (it sounded like) with a very thick Indian accent answered, and then transferred me to “Alan.”
His company is UTECHSUPPORT www.UTECHSUPPORT.com NOTE: I advise you to not order anything from this site!
When I asked him why he called me in particular, he tried to avoid the question or say he was calling to help me. I persisted. Finally I asked him if Microsoft had contracted his company to call me. He then said, “Yes! My company was subcontracted by Microsoft to call me, and that is how I got your information!”
He told me to enter “eventvwr” in the command line. Well, HE didn’t say “command line”…he walked me through how to get there as though I had never touched a computer before.
NOTE: Be on the look-out for a caller such as this who calls unsolicited and tells you to enter “cmd” and also “assoc”.
After going through a few more steps, he had me check my CLSID and said, “Is your CLSID number 888DCA60-FC0A-11CF-8F0F-00C04FD7D062?”
Of course I said, in amazement, “Why yes? How did you know that?”
He said, “See!? I know because I’m trying to help you! I was asked by Microsoft to help you! I wouldn’t have known that information otherwise, would I! That is specific to your computer. I wouldn’t have known it unless I was asked to help you specifically!”
NOTE: Techie friends, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the CLSID code on all MS OS’s, at least late model ones, the same?
When he told me to go to https://secure.logmeinrescue.com/Customer/Code.aspx (NOTE: Don’t go to this site unless you’re an information security expert and know what you’re doing) and said he would be happy to tell me the code so I could log into the site, I asked him why I needed to. He said so he could download software to my computer to scan and clean my operating system.
I then said that I would not download software from a site I knew nothing about. He then tried for a minute or so to convince me, and then finally said, “Well, then close down that screen.” Me, “What screen?” Him, “The logmein screen” Me, “No, I think I’ll keep it here for a while,” Him (voice raised), “Close it down now!” Me, “Why are you yelling at me?” Him, “Sorry, I wasn’t yelling, that is just how I talk.” Me, “It sounded like yelling to me.”
After a few more minutes of such talk, and yes, he started almost yelling again, I stopped and started telling him about the reasons why I would not do as he asked, and then I started explaining to him about cyber scammers and cybercriminals.
Sadly, then, dear “Jason” then hung up.
Yes, I will report this scam to the FTC as a type of phone fraud: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/phonefraud/report.shtml
Please be on the lookout for this scam! I don’t want you to fall for what is a pretty convincing reason from these crooks for why you should accept their “help,” this guy was pretty good at social engineering.
If you DO receive a call, please report it http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/phonefraud/report.shtml so these crooks can be caught. The more evidence against them, the better.