Remote Access Scam With a New Slant

#remoteaccessscam

I had an interesting series of calls today. Unfortunately it was still the same old remote access scam, but with an enhanced dialog aimed at fooling the unwary and those who may be aware as well.

To paraphrase the events and dialog:
- Call to home phone from an unidentified number
- Male voice, accent indicative of somewhere in the sub-continental area
- Scammer: "Can I please speak to the main owner of the computer in the residence?"
- Me: "What is this about?"
- Scammer: "We have detected strange security related activity happening from the computer. We can identify it by its licence number."
- Me: "Which company are you calling from?"
- Scammer: "BT Support. If you go to www.btsupport.us that is our website and you will see we are real."
- Me: "Never heard of you and I do not have any contract with you."
- Scammer: "No. No, you would not have heard off us, as like most people you are probably not into cyber-security."
- Me: "Which device did you detect this activity on?"
- Scammer: "We just have a licence number."
- Me: "I think this is a scam. You are working for a company that gives you a script full of lies. Goodbye."
I hang up.
Phone rings again - number is 016425888588 (not an Australian number)
- Me: "Hello"
- Scammer: "Why did you hang up on me. This is not a scam. I can give you a licence number and you can confirm that for yourself."

At that point, I'd wasted enough time and oxygen on these calls, and hung up. In hind-sight I should have kept the call going to get to what the caller referred to as the licence number.

To the unwary, the caller having a licence number does sound more legitimate. However, stop and ask yourself these questions:
- If I have registered the licence number in person or online - would I not have registered it with a company that I know I have had dealings with, and not some random company I have never heard of?
- Why would the random company be calling me to fix my computer.. this still does not happen unless they are wanting to get money for doing nothing.
- Licence number. Which one? I have multiple devices - everyone does. The devices themselves do not have licence numbers. The software and applications installed on your devices will have licence numbers, including the operating system, which made me highly suspicious when the caller was not able to identify with a company that I am aware of.

For the record:
- The second unmasked call cam from an overseas phone number.
- The website given does not work. I even tried a couple f variants in case I did not understand the caller properly - all lead to nothing.
- I Googled BT Support - the closest result I got was the customer support site for British Telecom superannuation and investments.

If you get this kind of call, just hang up. Don't waste your time with them. All that they wish to do is to trick you into believing that you have a problem on your computer so that you will let them remotely access it, so that they can put on a scripted show that makes you think that they are wizards at what they do, and they will want to sign you up for an expensive 12 month support plan that will not give you anything except an empty bank account.