Can any of you tell, from the accent of this English, WHERE it comes from?

[Ned Turnbull]

Thanks for sharing that story, which I read, with interest, as I never went further than to download the requested package.

On the entire net, unfortunately, very few people actually followed the Indian Support Scam to fruition, as most stop at the credit card details, as this guy did in that article.

The *only* published scam that I know of that went further, was the sting by the US government article, which shows the next steps.

1. Indian caller calls victim (generally unsolicited)
2. Indian caller informs them their PC has been sending reports.
3. If persuasion is needed, Indian caller shows them event viewer.
4. Victim downloads Support.me or similar remote-sharing software
5. Victim provides the machine-specific ID to the Indian caller.
6. Indian caller accomplice logs in & brings up PayPal.
7. Victim enters in credit card information for 0 fee. .... If victim plays dumb, the callers delete important files!
8. Victim has 0 withdrawn plus much more in wire transfers.

As far as I can tell from the published videos and audio, none of which go the full mile, the Indian scammers do *not* install keyloggers or other malware (but, certainly, they could).

They just try to pull as much money out of you as they can.

[Ned Turnbull]

Actually, almost all the published videos *stop* at the paypal form point, as did this malwarebytes researcher did also:

I can't find a *single* video that actually allows valid information to be entered into the paypal form, so, we don't really know (other than from the US Government Sting Operation previously noted) what they do

*after* that.

Of course, none of us would be willing to get to that level of understanding ...

[Adam Funk]

...

I haven't tried this yet (I get very few unwanted calls, for some reason), but I have heard that if you record the "out of service" error tone at the beginning of your outgoing message, auto-diallers will recognize it & often delete your number from their list.

[Pico Rico]

They need to clone the "private attorney general" language from the A.D.A. law into the do not call law. Then there will be drive by lawsuits where they belong.

[John Robertson]

That has been talked about and appears to be somewhat effective.

They may be on to that trick by now, after all this has been available since around 2005.

Wikipedia has a number of tones recorded that may be fun to play with:

If it is successful please report back!

John :-#)#

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I have a device on my home phone that answers and plays a message "please press 1 ....". So far, the auto-dialers don't press 1, and my phone doesn't ring (just answering machine).

[Ned Turnbull]

I complained following instructions here ...

Specifically, I went here:

[amdx]

Here's a neat quiz to give a location by words you use. Only good in the US though. I bet the government is developing such a program for homeland security.

I took it and it said I was probably from Grand Rapids, Detroit or Toledo. Darn close to Kalamazoo Mi., where I was born and lived for about 40 years. Apparently I didn't loose my native speech even though I have lived in Florida for 20 years.

Mikek

[Michael A. Terrell]

It is a zero frills landline service for the disabled or senior citizens to have access to medical help. They remove the federal taxes, in exchange for giving you basic service at a low price.

[Michael A. Terrell]

Tell them they were cleaned last week, by their company. Then ask just how bad is their workmanship.

[Michael A. Terrell]

An hour and eight minutes of a guy messing with a fake support site, until his throw away cell phone fails:

[Adam Funk]

Well, I guess they have 3 or 4 choices:

1. delete numbers that result in an out-of-service tone;
2. keep all numbers in the list & continue to waste money (maybe not much) dialling numbers that are out of service;

3a. let ASR try to analyse the voice messages after the tone to decide whether to keep or delete the numbers; 3b. pay someone to listen to the messages to do that.

Interesting, thanks.

[rbowman]

Interestingm but it listed Madison and Milwaukee WI and Rockford IL. I've been through all three, which is about as close as I've gotten.

[Steve Hayes]

I think you have to string them along for a while. If you just hang up they seem to call back, unless there are thousands of freelance scammers with the same script.

[Unquestionably Confused]

[snip]

How about the old low tech method for harassing phone calls?

Talk low so you know the person has the phone tightly clenched to his ear... pull out a loud police whistle and.... That's all folks!

[Hans Aberg]

I saw that one, but also in Sweden, Caller ID is typically not included in the basic landline: you have to pay a few bucks a month to get that. Is that not possible on this type of landlines (for which there is no equivalent in Sweden)?

[Michael A. Terrell]

No. If you want frills, you have to pay full price for basic service first.

[Hans Aberg]

OK.

[chuck]

The results said I was from Philadelphia or the NYC area though I haven't lived in the Philly area for over 45 years.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Pegged me for Philly to and I moved away in 1981. I guess you never lose some of the local terms though.