Here's one from today.
I had to go save someone's computer from a situation similar to the one Marmalady talked about in her thread over in Sightings. Basically, these people call you up and tell you that they're Microsoft partners and they detect your computer is on the brink of death, and you need to let them have some money and access to your machine because your Event Log has errors. In all reality, there's nothing wrong with your machine, and you're paying them to steal your personal information. End backstory.
After I freed their machine from the hell wreaked on it by the scam artists, I recommended to the client that they change every password they use to do anything. You know, for security purposes, since that's why I was called in the first place.
"I don't want to."
Well, guess what? You told me you don't want to have your personal information stolen. If someone has compromised your system, you need to change every password you have so they can't jack your accounts.
"I don't know how."
Tell ya what. You tell me what online services you use, and I'll show you how to reset your passwords.
"That takes a lot of time."
It's a small price to pay to save your private information. I'd rather spend an hour changing all my passwords than have to deal with the bank for months when someone tries to buy a private yacht or a mansion in Bermuda with money I don't have.
"But my computer's never on!"
That doesn't matter. If you gave them access to your machine for an hour--which you plainly told me you did--then they have your passwords. It doesn't matter if your computer's on or not. They can do just as much damage from their location with the information they phished as they can from your machine.
"But my computer did have a lot of errors! I saw them!"
Even a virus-free machine will show errors in the Event Log. Just because your Event Log shows 894 errors doesn't mean you get a dialog box for every error. Some of them are silent errors that take place deep within the code of the program. Hell, I've never had a virus on my rig, and my Event Log currently shows I've experienced 1194 errors in the past week. That doesn't mean my computer is going to die; it just means part of the code in a program didn't like the action it was asked to do, and the system flagged it.
"How do you know they were scammers? They have a website!"
Anyone with a copy of FrontPage can make a legitimate-looking website, buy the domain for that website, and publish it on the Internet. On top of that, Firefox flagged the site as malicious when I tried to visit it. Yep, I'm pretty sure the people you talked to were scammers.
This conversation went on for about an hour. Before I left, I told the client to leave the computer on so I could finish installing their Windows updates remotely.
Me: "Would you be willing to leave your computer on? I'd like to access it when I get back to the office and make sure it's up-to-date."
Client: "Okay."
When I got back to my location, I looked at the list of PC's I manage and saw the client's system wasn't on. Finding it strange that the system appeared in the list before I left and disappeared in a span of 20 minutes, I picked up the phone and called the client.
Me: "Hello. I just got back to the office and saw your computer wasn't on. Did you happen to turn it off? I'd like to get that updated for you. If you could turn it back on, I could get everything as updated as possible for you today."
Client: "I thought you said to turn the computer off! You don't know what the hell you're doing!"
Me:
*wait five minutes for the client to power on the computer*
Client: "What the hell does this mean? It's telling me to do something!"
Me: *remotes in* "Ma'am, I'm not seeing it. Could you point to it with your mouse? I can see what you see right now."
Client: "No! You should know what I'm talking about!"
Yes, I should know what you're talking about. There are only tens of thousands of error messages in Windows, on top of tens of thousands more error messages for every other program you use. I should definitely know which error message out of the potentially hundreds of thousands of error messages that was on the screen a split-second before I remoted into your machine.
By the way, the only error messages popping up when I rebooted your machine on-site were the ones associated with the adware and spyware I removed. After the crapware was told to hit the road, your machine booted up error-free. So unless this error is in your mind, I don't know what error you're talking about unless it's a PEBCAK or ID-10-T error. I'm gonna go with one of those.
Me: "I'll take a look at the errors when I reboot your system."
Client: "You damn well better!"
I rebooted the system. There were no errors. How many of you want to bet I get a call about a magic error that doesn't exist in the next few days?
The moral of this story:
1) Don't talk to scammers.
2) When you call in a technician to fix the mess made by the scammers, don't argue with them when they try to help you.
3) For the love of all that's holy, when the tech gives you simple instructions even a five-year-old could follow, listen to them!
This was my day today...
I had to go save someone's computer from a situation similar to the one Marmalady talked about in her thread over in Sightings. Basically, these people call you up and tell you that they're Microsoft partners and they detect your computer is on the brink of death, and you need to let them have some money and access to your machine because your Event Log has errors. In all reality, there's nothing wrong with your machine, and you're paying them to steal your personal information. End backstory.
After I freed their machine from the hell wreaked on it by the scam artists, I recommended to the client that they change every password they use to do anything. You know, for security purposes, since that's why I was called in the first place.
"I don't want to."
Well, guess what? You told me you don't want to have your personal information stolen. If someone has compromised your system, you need to change every password you have so they can't jack your accounts.
"I don't know how."
Tell ya what. You tell me what online services you use, and I'll show you how to reset your passwords.
"That takes a lot of time."
It's a small price to pay to save your private information. I'd rather spend an hour changing all my passwords than have to deal with the bank for months when someone tries to buy a private yacht or a mansion in Bermuda with money I don't have.
"But my computer's never on!"
That doesn't matter. If you gave them access to your machine for an hour--which you plainly told me you did--then they have your passwords. It doesn't matter if your computer's on or not. They can do just as much damage from their location with the information they phished as they can from your machine.
"But my computer did have a lot of errors! I saw them!"
Even a virus-free machine will show errors in the Event Log. Just because your Event Log shows 894 errors doesn't mean you get a dialog box for every error. Some of them are silent errors that take place deep within the code of the program. Hell, I've never had a virus on my rig, and my Event Log currently shows I've experienced 1194 errors in the past week. That doesn't mean my computer is going to die; it just means part of the code in a program didn't like the action it was asked to do, and the system flagged it.
"How do you know they were scammers? They have a website!"
Anyone with a copy of FrontPage can make a legitimate-looking website, buy the domain for that website, and publish it on the Internet. On top of that, Firefox flagged the site as malicious when I tried to visit it. Yep, I'm pretty sure the people you talked to were scammers.
This conversation went on for about an hour. Before I left, I told the client to leave the computer on so I could finish installing their Windows updates remotely.
Me: "Would you be willing to leave your computer on? I'd like to access it when I get back to the office and make sure it's up-to-date."
Client: "Okay."
When I got back to my location, I looked at the list of PC's I manage and saw the client's system wasn't on. Finding it strange that the system appeared in the list before I left and disappeared in a span of 20 minutes, I picked up the phone and called the client.
Me: "Hello. I just got back to the office and saw your computer wasn't on. Did you happen to turn it off? I'd like to get that updated for you. If you could turn it back on, I could get everything as updated as possible for you today."
Client: "I thought you said to turn the computer off! You don't know what the hell you're doing!"
Me:
*wait five minutes for the client to power on the computer*
Client: "What the hell does this mean? It's telling me to do something!"
Me: *remotes in* "Ma'am, I'm not seeing it. Could you point to it with your mouse? I can see what you see right now."
Client: "No! You should know what I'm talking about!"
Yes, I should know what you're talking about. There are only tens of thousands of error messages in Windows, on top of tens of thousands more error messages for every other program you use. I should definitely know which error message out of the potentially hundreds of thousands of error messages that was on the screen a split-second before I remoted into your machine.
By the way, the only error messages popping up when I rebooted your machine on-site were the ones associated with the adware and spyware I removed. After the crapware was told to hit the road, your machine booted up error-free. So unless this error is in your mind, I don't know what error you're talking about unless it's a PEBCAK or ID-10-T error. I'm gonna go with one of those.
Me: "I'll take a look at the errors when I reboot your system."
Client: "You damn well better!"
I rebooted the system. There were no errors. How many of you want to bet I get a call about a magic error that doesn't exist in the next few days?
The moral of this story:
1) Don't talk to scammers.
2) When you call in a technician to fix the mess made by the scammers, don't argue with them when they try to help you.
3) For the love of all that's holy, when the tech gives you simple instructions even a five-year-old could follow, listen to them!
This was my day today...
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