Scams 3

Well, well, well. This post, and this, and now this from the Beeb:

Internet users are being warned about cold callers who offer to fix viruses but then install software to steal personal information.

Campaign group Get Safe Online said a quarter of people it had questioned had received such calls, many suspected to have been from organised crime gangs.

Some gangs, employing up to 400 people, are known to set up their own call centres to target people en masse.

I wasn't alone, then.

Scams

Wrinkled Weasel has a post on 'grey' internet scams - behaviour by legitimate companies that is borderline immoral but not strictly breaking any rules. This reminded me of an incident here the other day.

I was called by a company calling itself 'Tech My Support' (an odd word-order to start with), who told me they had identified problems with my computer and offering to assist me to clear them. The female caller had a heavy Indian accent, and I was suspicious. Well, more than suspicious. I'm not an expert in the inner workings of the internet, but I am pretty sure that a) it is not possible to scan my computer for corrupted files remotely unless I give someone permission, and b) that if any organisation were able to do this, they would not be ringing me to tell me about it.

I played along, making like I was an old codger without a clue. Yes, I had experienced serious problems with my computer, and thank you so much for calling me. I introduced a couple of red herrings to make sure that they were lying: I got them to confirm that the computer is a Dell laptop (it isn't) and that I was running windows 7 (it isn't). They also told me that there were four computers accessing the internet from this house, which means that they have performed some voodoo magic on the old Dell desktop that hasn't been switched on for three years. I had some fun with them for half an hour or so, and then did the classic trick of saying "back in a minute" and then leaving the phone on the kitchen worktop. They were still on the line even after 10 minutes of that, so I got the dog to bark loudly into the handset and then put the phone down.

The following day, at the same time, they called again. Same lady calling ("Hello, this is Debbeeee") and same 'senior technician' that she put online when I asked her some awkward questions. They swore that they had never called me before, and started on the same script, so I hung up. That night, at the TOMCC pub meet, I mentioned this, and another member had had exactly the same call last month.

The method is quite clever. They ask you to turn your computer on, and then get you to do certain harmless things which 'prove' that the computer is corrupted. In this instance, they got me to look into Event Viewer, which is always full of random errors and warnings. If you have no knowledge of how computers and the internet work, you could well be taken in. Once they have got you convinced that your computer is infected and believing that they are able to fix it remotely, they will try to get you to log into a website which they spell out for you. My guess is that this is where the remote access permission will be given, and the trouble will start.

Be warned.

Watch out - bike scam

Sad to see that a forum I was once involved with has been the 'victim' of a lot of scams involving the sale of motorcycles. The forum was part of the UKBike website, which was owned by a company I used to work for. In fact, it was how I was tempted back into biking after a few years' layoff. The guy who had been contracted to run the newly-acquired website asked all staff to write something for the web content, and I duly obliged with a few stories and reviews. This got me thinking, then I 'happened' to call by my local dealership one day, and within a week or two I was back on two wheels. For a while, the forum was lively, but the parent company neglected it and, as is the way with these things, the forum died the death.

I logged in there a few moments ago, just out of curiosity, and there have been a few posts there since I left, most of which concern a scam that seems to be gaining momentum, especially through low-cost advertisers like Friday-Ad, where the level of supervision of the advertisers is necessarily minimal. It's a classic scam which no-one with any common sense would be taken in by, but it seems to be working with some:

• Advert appears in a small-ads paper (or its associated website) for a desirable bike at a suspiciously low price
• Caller responds and is given details and an email contact
• Bike is held at a 'shipping agent' and money must be sent to the agent by Moneygram or Western Union and held there
  
• When money is received, bike will be delivered to buyer
• When buyer is happy with the purchase, agent will send money to seller.

Of course, the bike doesn't exist (or it does, but is advertised over and over again), and the latter two stages of the process never happen. Once the money is sent, nothing more is heard. One chap has posted his unfortunate experiences on the forum, and another has done his research at Companies House and has listed all the dodgy directorships of the person involved, who claims to sell bikes this way because he is a welder on a North Sea oil rig and is selling the bike to raise money while he is away.

It's amazing that, in this day and age, people are still being taken in by scams like this. But some people seem to be trusting souls - perhaps bikers more than others, as we tend to band together and trust each other in a way that doesn't happen elsewhere. A lot of the anger is being directed at the website and publication, for hosting the adverts in the first place.

In the old, old words, which cannot be repeated often enough: if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.