Call from India 'You have a virus'

[tvout]

Hi all,
I just had a call from my Dad to say someone had called from 'Tech Assist' and that they were instructed by Microsoft to look at his machine for viruses etc etc
He asked if I'd heard of them and I said I hadn't but straight away alarm bells rang and when he said they had taken control of his PC straight away I said to disconnect them.
I went over to his PC via Remote Assistance and managed to get the two addresses from his history:
www.annyy.com/en
www.techassist24x7.com

I checked event viewer to find evidence of a Logmein Rescue session and did a Netstat.
I said to run a virus scan on the PC just in case but wondering what else could be done to help ensure security and also report these *&£$"!'s

From what I've read about it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...a-call-centres

there doesn't seem to be anyway of taking action against them as they're abroad etc...
The only thing I considered was complaining to the site owner or host of the domain?

[Kymmy]

The first address is just a parked domain, the 2nd is the idiots using the "Your PC is broke so please let us pretend to fix it so we can charge you money" routine

They do have a UK phone number (SW Manchester) but it's hard to prove that they've committed a crime as they use very specific terms which makes you think you have a problem without them actually stating that.

Strange that they have instant access as your father would have had to of gone via the logmein123 link at the top of their page.

In simple terms they do prey on a person having little knowledge of computers...but that is the same with most things (like the old Mechanic overcharging women ploy from many years back)

Thread moved to Security and Virus forum

[tvout]

Thanks Kymmy, I'm not entirely sure what he did. I think he install logmein somehow from the link.
I checked the first link and it turns out it was actually www.ammyy.com which took me to a web based remote control app.

It looks quite interesting too, I'm trying out Teamviewer to my Dad's PC at the moment after hassle getting Remote Assistance connected (sending the invite etc as he uses Hotmail so had to talk through all that).

They opened up Event Viewer and used the logs in there to say there were viruses causing them and then loaded disk defragmenter at which point my Dad was suspicious. They also asked if my Dad worked in IT and when he said he didn't but I did, the bloke said 'why doesn't he remove the viruses from your PC then?' - because there aren't (weren't) any!!! ...and he's 200 miles away too...

[Osem]

Just a thought but might it be worth him changing his phone number? If this is just another scam his current number may already be on a 'suckers list' and that wouldn't be good news. A good mate of mine once entered into a fairly brief dialogue with what turned out to be a 'boiler room' operation who called him out of the blue. Thereafter, despite being ex-directory, he was regularly pestered with entirely unsolicited call from all manner of dodgy outfits trying to get him to part with some cash.

[tvout]

Nice thinking Osem, I could mention it to him but they've had the same number for about 40 years so it wouldn't be easy to convince them. My mum has a 'different' view towards cold callers saying she doesn't mind speaking to them as it keeps people in jobs!

The thing I starting thinking about last night also was the logmein rescue session. I've not used it myself but wondered how easily they might have been able to access any files on his PC? He watched them mess around in event viewer and defragmenter bit I considered they may have potentially stolen info off his PC as well.
I'm hoping the only element involved was duping people into signing up for £100 support services etc for their apparent amazing work in cleaning up all the 'viruses' in the event viewer by running a defrag!!

[Peter_]

Here are a few items that my help.

http://www.truecall.co.uk/acatalog/trueCallShop.html

Get rid of all sorts of unwelcome caller quickly and politely!
trueCall is your nuisance call blocker. It checks every call you receive before letting your phone ring. It connects your friends, family and invited callers straight through but stops all sorts of nuisance calls - telemarketing, silent calls, market researchers, calls from overseas call centres, fax calls, offensive or threatening calls, misdials, wrong numbers and recorded message calls.

Register here to reduce silent calls http://www.ukdatait.co.uk/cgi-bin/sgAddNumber.cgi


Action Fraud is the place for you to find out about fraud.http://www.actionfraud.org.uk/

We’re the UK’s national fraud reporting centre. If you’ve been scammed, ripped off or conned, there is something you can do about it - get in touch with us.

[tvout]

Cheers Masque, some really useful info there I didn't know about. Especially the actionfraud site. Glad to know my taxes are going into something useful with that. I reported an email myself and will let friends and family know too.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by tvout

Nice thinking Osem, I could mention it to him but they've had the same number for about 40 years so it wouldn't be easy to convince them.

Yes, that might be an issue.

My mum has a 'different' view towards cold callers saying she doesn't mind speaking to them as it keeps people in jobs!

Awww... but that's probably only true if she spends some money after keeping them on the phone chatting away for ages....


It might be wise to have a few words with them about the need to be very careful to establish who's calling and what they want and not to give any information or agree to anything until they've had a chat with you first. Get across the message that genuine companies will never contact them out of the blue without prior permission and will never ask for anything like account details, security numbers, passwords etc. over the phone.

Your parents actually sound like mine and whenever my Dad's in a such a situation he just says, firmly but politely, that his son manages all his affairs and they rapidly lose interest...

[tvout]

Hi Osem,
My Dad called me to ask if I'd heard of Tech Assist and I was thinking the name didn't really sound familiar and he mentioned the call and I was shocked when he said that he'd let them take control of his PC. I didn't think he would allow people to do that based on a phone call like that as he is quite IT literate and knows about the insides of PCs and uses a range of applications etc. He couldn't even understand the first bloke who called so got put through to someone else with a (slightly) clearer accent!
I sent him a couple of links about it and said Microsoft most definitely would never just cold call people like that especially not about viruses - realistically they've sold you the product I don't think they care if your Windows gets riddled with viruses as it's up to the end user to keep up to date with security patches etc.