Scam Alert.

[edscoot]

On Thursday my 90 year old dad got scammed by a cold caller saying they had been told by Microsoft that his computer was running slow and was likely to breakdown soon. This they promised the could fix this if he paid them £99. They directed him to their website helppconline.com (which has been pointed out can be read as help con line) to prove they were genuine. He stupidly gave them his credit card details.

It is of course a total con. A quick search on the web about this outfit shows they are doing this all over the world and they've been doing it for some time.

Please be aware and also let any elderly friends or relatives (who can be a bit more trusting then us younger cynics), know that they should just put the phone down if they get a call from someone saying they can fix their pc. All the callers have Indian accents by the way.

He has had to alert the credit card company who have told him to cut up his card and are sending him a new one so the details he had given couldn't be used.

I think my dad got off quite lightly, a number of people have been asked to download software that has given the scammers access to the victims computer with predictable results.

[EddieC]

Its amazing how much effort people are willing to put into ripping others off out of their hard earned money. Ridiculous.

I'm always very careful with my life and financial security, but even still, I woke up one day and someone had gotten a hold of my debit card information... Goodbye everything in my checking and savings account.... Luckily the bank was able to get all but $20 back, but over 3 grand was returned to me. I got lucky... I now pay for lifelock service just incase.

[edscoot]

I remember a tv interview with a hacker who now works for the good guys - he said he has a credit card with a limit of £200 that he uses exclusively for internet purchases - that way if the details are stolen the criminals can't get too much cash.

helppconline seem to operate all over the English speaking world, UK, US, Australia are the countries I've seen that have been targeted.

You're right about the effort expended on these criminal acts. For the same amount of energy and skill they could almost certainly create and run a decent legitimate business that would pay

[EddieC]

the craigslist guys are always trying to get me when I sell online. They always want to send me checks that are huge and want me to send the excess funds back to them. I ALWAYS tell them that I would love to take their business. I let them send me bogus checks, tell them that i cashed them, but changed my mind and am going to keep the money. They always threaten to get the FBI involved.... I always make sure I take up as much of their time and money as possible. They usually FEDEX 2 day the checks to me... that costs some money to do... .

I figure the more time they waste with me, the less they're scamming others... I get pure joy from messing with them though.

[edscoot]

I wondered about getting an air horn to blast the scammers with (they phone quite often). I like the idea of one of these turds somewhere with bleeding ears.

[Woolley]

the craigslist guys are always trying to get me when I sell online. They always want to send me checks that are huge and want me to send the excess funds back to them. I ALWAYS tell them that I would love to take their business. I let them send me bogus checks, tell them that i cashed them, but changed my mind and am going to keep the money. They always threaten to get the FBI involved.... I always make sure I take up as much of their time and money as possible. They usually FEDEX 2 day the checks to me... that costs some money to do... .

I figure the more time they waste with me, the less they're scamming others... I get pure joy from messing with them though.

Thats awesome, i might have to start doing that too.

[EddieC]

please do! if they only run into people like us... they might stop... eventually

[maddiedog]

I like to email them back in forth to be facetious, and even act completely ignorant to piss the scammers off.

I work with information security a lot, and deal every day with malware, phishing, and computer intrusion on one of the projects I support at work. It's amazing how much crap is out there, quite sad really. It keeps me employed though, so I'm not complaining too much.