Over the last few years I’ve been sometimes annoyed and sometimes amused by the frequent calls from “Microsoft Technical Support” about “problems with my Windows computer.”
The calls always begin with someone speaking in a heavy Indian accent saying something like “Hello, this is Edward from Microsoft Technical Support. We have detected problems with your computer.” Just for fun, I usually ask “How do you know it’s my computer?” Edward: “We have extensive security monitoring and have matched it with the number under which you registered Windows.” At this point, I go in one of several directions. If I’m in a hurry, I say something like "But I have no Windows computers.” Or I ask “Does your mother know you’re a criminal?” These are usually answered by a quick click. If I’m not in a hurry, I’ll play stupid to see how long I can keep “Edward” on the line by having trouble with my computer. A while back, I fired up VirtualBox on my Linux machine and opened a Windows VM, just to see what they would do. I connected to the Web site they suggested and watched lots of traffic as they “diagnosed” my problems. There were lots of changes to the Windows registry. After a short time, they came back and suggested things could be fixed for $150. At that point, I used my mother-criminal line, hung up and deleted the Windows VM from the Linux machine. This has been going on for years and I’ve often wondered why Microsoft put up with it. According to ZDNet, it looks like they finally hit the breaking point. > New Delhi police have arrested 63 suspects in the last two months working and > operating 26 call centers that were engaging in tech support scams, posing as > tech support staff at Microsoft, Google, Apple, and other major tech > companies. The raids on Delhi-based call centers have taken place over the > last two months, Microsoft said. Police first raided 10 call centers and > arrested 24 people in October, and then raided 16 other call centers and made > 39 more arrests this week. > Microsoft said its staff received over 7,000 victim reports associated with > the 16 call centers raided this week, from over 15 countries. Users reported > paying between $100 and $500 for unnecessary tech support services and > products. The raids resulted in the seizure of substantial evidence including > call scripts, live chats, voice call recordings and customer records from > tech support fraud operations, Microsoft said. The Delhi police's crackdown > on tech support call centers came after Microsoft filed legal complaints > earlier this year. Microsoft has been collecting customer complaints about > tech support scams since 2014, via its "Report a technical support scam" > portal. L^2 --- Lee Larson [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Glory awaits, gentlemen. In the words of General Tacticus, 'Let us take history by the scrotum.' Of course, he was not a very honourable fighter. — Terry Pratchett Jingo
signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP
_______________________________________________ MacGroup mailing list Posting address: [email protected] Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/> Answers to questions: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup/>
