Cybercriminals Just Came A Callin’ At My House

I just got off a 30-minute call that came unsolicited from a young-sounding man with a very thick Indian accent who, when I asked him his name, said it was Jason Anderson (doesn’t sound like an authentic name of someone from India).  He told me he was calling me because there had been a lot of complaints in my area about malicious code damaging operating system software and he wanted to be sure my operating system was not impacted.

I’m sure I made his call a nightmare with all the questions I had for him.  And after he insulted my intelligence (Him: “that little blinking thing; that is where your letters show up when you type.  Look at that please, ma’am.”  I decided I’d just play dumb and go along with him to see what he would have me do.  Oh, and I asked a lot of questions along the way to gather as much information about him and his organization as possible. 

Here are some key facts about the call:

  • His phone number is 201-338-6170.  I told him I had to go to a different part of the house to get in front of my computer, which is how I got his phone number from him; it does not show up on caller ID.  When I called this number someone else (it sounded like) with a very thick Indian accent answered, and then transferred me to “Jason.”
  • His company is EProtectionz www.eprotectionz.com NOTE:  I advise you to not order anything from this site!
  • When I asked him why he called me in particular, he tried to avoid the question or say he was calling to help me.  I persisted.  Finally I asked him if Microsoft had contracted his company to call me.  He then said, “Yes! My company was subcontracted by Microsoft to call me, and that is how I got your information!”
  • He told me to enter “eventvwr” in the command line.  Well, HE didn’t say “command line”…he walked me through how to get there as though I had never touched a computer before. 
  • NOTE: Be on the look-out for a caller such as this who calls unsolicited and tells you to enter “cmd” and also “assoc”.
  • After going through a few more steps, he had me check my CLSID and said, “Is your CLSID number 888DCA60-FC0A-11CF-8F0F-00C04FD7D062?” 
  • Of course I said, in amazement, “Why yes?  How did you know that?”
  • He said, “See!?  I know because I’m trying to help you!  I was asked by Microsoft to help you!  I wouldn’t have known that information otherwise, would I!  That is specific to your computer.  I wouldn’t have known it unless I was asked to help you specifically!”
  • NOTE: Techie friends, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the CLSID code on all MS OS’s, at least late model ones, the same?
  • When he told me to go to https://secure.logmeinrescue.com/Customer/Code.aspx (NOTE: Don’t go to this site unless you’re an information security expert and know what you’re doing) and said he would be happy to tell me the code so I could log into the site, I asked him why I needed to.  He said so he could download software to my computer to scan and clean my operating system.
  • I then said that I would not download software from a site I knew nothing about.  He then tried for a minute or so to convince me, and then finally said, “Well, then close down that screen.”  Me, “What screen?” Him, “The logmein screen” Me, “No, I think I’ll keep it here for a while,” Him (voice raised), “Close it down now!” Me, “Why are you yelling at me?” Him, “Sorry, I wasn’t yelling, that is just how I talk.” Me, “It sounded like yelling to me.”
  • After a few more minutes of such talk, and yes, he started almost yelling again, I stopped and started telling him about the reasons why I would not do as he asked, and then I started explaining to him about cyber scammers and cybercriminals.
  • Sadly, then, dear “Jason” then hung up. 

Yes, I will report this scam to the FTC as a type of phone fraud: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/phonefraud/report.shtml

 

Please be on the lookout for this scam!  I don’t want you to fall for what is a pretty convincing reason from these crooks for why you should accept their “help,” this guy was pretty good at social engineering.  

If you DO receive a call, please report it http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/phonefraud/report.shtml so these crooks can be caught.  The more evidence against them, the better.

 

It was kind fun to pretend to be an airhead for a while, but overall this guy just really made me mad.

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