Wednesday 20 August 2014

What do phone scammers sound like?

Have you had this phone call? I have! I didn't think to record it, but I did play him a bit. Our computers are all Macs, no Microsoft here. He told me I had computer problems, and I was quite sarcastic.
"I do?"
Next time, I'll ask him if his mother knows what he does.

This is the audio recording of the conversation, as uploaded to SoundCloud by Mantel


Globe & Mail
On Thursday Joel Mantel, 23, was eating dinner with his family when he received a phone call from someone claiming to be a customer service agent with Microsoft. The person on the phone told Mantel that there were problems with his computer and 'Microsoft' needed him to hand over control to them remotely.
Mantel has since handed the audio file over to the RCMP Anti-Fraud Centre. The Microsoft phone scam and show them this recording, so they can see how one of these calls actually sounds.
RCMP says complaints can be registered with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501 or on antifraudcentre.ca.

8 comments:

Olga said...

I also got this call--i hung up.

Olga said...

I also got a similar call. I hung up. Some day I will remember to string these callers along.

Nancy J said...

I had to laugh, as this is almost exactly the same call I had a while ago. When I asked for a phone number, they gave me one, and it is a real number here in NZ. A scam that some people might not realise, and then get huge virus problems when they hand over control. I told him I had Apple, iMac, and no Microsoft!!! Great to hear the call and that it was reported. Cheers, Jean.

Karen said...

We get a LOT of scam calls because our home number is also used for a business.

Lately we've had some issues with some of these offshore telemarketers being VERY abusive. One guy phoned back three times in succession and said awful awful things to The Man of the house. The last time he called, he claimed to be from the CRTC and said he had a right to call us. What a looser.

Anonymous said...

They do seem very surprised when told we don't use any computer with Windows ... usually asked are you sure, you are showing a virus. Since we dumped the land line we don't get any calls like that anymore.

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari Om
...caller ID...I love it. Unless I know the number or it is one in the 'address book', that telephone can ring all it wants!!! YAM xx

William Kendall said...

I recall a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin answers the phone, hears someone he doesn't want to talk to, makes a noise and yells out "Aggh! I've been shot!"

That's one way to get rid of them.

theikmarket said...

I got a call like that, too, so I reported the phone number to Callercenter to warn others. The scammer that called me talked well and I thought was legit. It was only after he claimed that their servers monitored a virus in my computer that I realized he was bluffing.I know for sure that it's not possible. Computers don't send signal or alerts to other computers, much less on it's own.