Scam

I got a phone call this morning. Normally I would have ignored it as it was an international number and I had a pretty good idea it was an unsolicited call that would try and liberate me of a substantial amount of cash, either legally or not. However, I thought for a change I’d answer it. Needless to say it was a gentleman with an Indian accent who asked “Is that Mister Hughes”. To his credit he didn’t ask if I was Mister Hugs so I felt that this guy was on the ball, I’d better be careful. If I do answer these calls this is normally how far it gets. I confirm that I am in fact Mister Hughes/Hugs and let them give their introductory spiel about whatever disaster they are supposedly trying to save me from. Once they have finished I don’t respond. I then hear “Mr Hugs… Mr Hugs…Mr Hugs….” Beeeeepppp. Satisfied that I’ve wasted a couple of minutes of their time I can tackle whatever else the day has to offer with a bit of smug satisfaction. Today was different though, I don’t know why, but I decided to play along for a bit.

As they frequently do, today’s caller, who called himself Brian, claimed to be form Microsoft Security. Apparently my computer was showing as playing up and he asked me if I’d noticed it running slow or any suffering from any errors lately. I said no not really but this didn’t put him off. He asked if I was sat by my computer. I needed to play for time a bit so said not yet but eventually I ‘admitted’ that I was there and the computer was starting. This took another minute or two. What I failed to inform Brian was that I don’t have a Windows computer, I have a Mac which was already switched on and ready to quickly do a Google search of anything I was asked to do. This was good as the first thing was to identify the button next to the CTRL key on the keyboard, a bit tricky when you’ve only got a Mac keyboard as reference. I played it a bit dim whilst I Googled Windows Keyboard. Having ‘identified’ the appropriate key, it was the one with the Windows logo on it, I was asked to press it along with the ‘R’ key. Another bit of procrastination was required whilst I quickly googled what CTR/R brought up so I could continue to play along. It was the ‘Run’ window. By now I had discovered a page that detailed this precise scam so was able to follow it stage by stage.

“Enter ‘eventewr’ into the window” he asked.

“I’ve done it” I lied.

According to the scam report webpage I was viewing, a window with a big list of tech stuff should pop up, some of which had little warning and error symbols by them. I informed Brian of this and he used the information as conclusive proof that my non-existent Windows computer was playing up! It then got a little bit confused as he asked me to click on something that didn’t quite match the script that I was following, so more procrastination was required by playing the ‘thick as mince’ card, something I find worryingly easy. Eventually it became clear that he was wanting me to download a program called ‘Anydesk’. More Google searching… Ah, right. Anydesk is a perfectly legal program which allows you to remotely access your computer from another. Handily, the page I’d accessed went through the installation process so I could play along a bit longer.

“Enter anydesk.com into the search box” my new Indian friend asked.

“Done it” said I.

“What can you see?”.

“It’s asking me for a password” I responded. This is where it all started to unravel. I don’t think this was the response he was expecting. He asked me again what I saw, I repeated that it wanted a password.

“No, that must be the computer user password”.

“Oh, right, let me try that”. Wait a few seconds…

Suddenly a new voice came over the line: “Hello Mister Hughes”.

“Are you new” I asked? “You sound different”.

“I’m Nick the supervisor” he said. ‘Nick’ had a slightly more aggressive tone than Brian. He wasn’t really buying the fact that I had a password to enter and by now I was running out of ways to play along with a Windows scam when I didn’t have a Windows computer.

“Can you speak louder?” asked Nick.

“Not really” I said.

“Are you British?” he asked. That question came out of the blue but I quickly rallied.

“Yes, very much so” was my response.

“You don’t sound it, you sound Canadian or Indian”.

“Not as Indian as you do” I accurately responded.

“Are you wasting time?” he enquired.

“No, I think it’s you who might be wasting my time” I said, still playing it a bit dim.

“Get off the line motherfucker” was his final charming retort.

“Thank you, have a nice day” I said in a cheerful manner that I hoped would piss him off even more. The call ended there some twenty minutes after it had started. I know I won’t get that twenty minutes back but I take great comfort in that it’s twenty minutes less time for Brian and Nick to scam other people.

Further Google searches revealed this to be quite a serious attempt to scam. Sometimes they just ask you to Paypal them $299 to fix the issues. If so, you’ve got off lightly. If you end up downloading Anydesk, the next thing they will try and do is get you to allow them to use it to access your computer. They need you to reveal passwords and suchlike but if they’ve convinced you enough to get that far, they can persuade you to impart the sort of information you should always keep to yourself. Once in they can then raid your online bank accounts and anything else that might cause you grief. Of course I was never going to fall for it even if I had the appropriate Windows computer. Most people wouldn’t but there must be a small number that do. Not everyone is tech savvy and older people in particular are more likely to fall for the ‘look at all those errors’ nonsense. Lives have been destroyed through scams like this. So Brian and Nick, you may well live in the slums of Calcutta but you are still filthy, thieving, scummy bastards. Don’t fall for it folks. It isn’t Microsoft or BT phoning you. Ever.