In the last two weeks twice I've had my laptop frozen by a virus with an 888 number to call Microsoft support. On the first one I got an offshore Indian sounding fellow that apparently was a technical advisor. He asked me if I had been looking at "bad" sites.I said do you mean like Chevy power? He didn't get it. He wanted $98 to reset my computer. I was fried. Told him I'll throw it in the river before I pay a hacker to "fix" my computer. He hemhawed around and I said last chance or I toss it. He hesitated and I hung up. Left the laptop sit for a day and it was back to normal. A week later it happened again same hacker number. I just let it sit a day without calling support and it returned to normal. Here's the kicker, both times I clicked on Amazon! Tried to get a hold of a live person to report it at Amazon or Microsoft. Yea good luck with that. Anyone else have this issue with Amazon?

 

I've heard co-workers talk about having similar experiences, but only when they were on **** sites. I figured the hackers think that guys would be most likely willing to pay up to hide their tracks. Just saying.

 

I don't look at **** period. I look at motorcycle,car, FTE, AACA, offerup, craigslist,billiards.Both times I clicked on Amazon when I got hacked. Now I'm hesitant to get on it.

 

It will only get worse........ Put the "good stuff" on an external back up.... Just wait until they hack into the vehicle computers and send you to "Joe's Repair shop" to get your vehicle repaired.... LOL

Man, I'm loving those "Pre-Computer" Vehicles.

Hobo

 

I haven’t had that same issue, but I’ve had plenty. As an IT professional for 35 years, I’ve seen all types of virus, malware, ransom ware, scams, you name it.

Lots of folks blame **** sites for viruses, the truth is they are among the most carefully protected sites on the internet. Many now come from small retail sites and sites specifically put up to come up with common searches. Another way they get you is random auto dialers. They’ll call you with some terrifying story about your computer and try to get control of your PC.

It’s very important to NOT respond to these scammers, they’ll get your phone number and sell it.

 

Had one call the other day . Listened till he requested an answer It was s " Hadji . what sort of scam are you running today ? " During Christmas it was , " You have reached the Santa Claus hot line # , have you been good boys this year or bad Ho Ho Ho's , press 1 for Santa , 2 for Mrs. Claus or 3 for the Keebler elves " Oh , yes they have cussed me out also.
"

 

Had one about a years ago. My wife kept nagging about someone was calling her on her phone and telling her he was from microsoft and their systems have indicated our system was compromised. I told her the guy was a scammer by she come up to me once or twice a week and tell me the guy called again. Finally one Saturday she told me the guy was on her phone. I took the phone and searched for the number and the results said it was associated with a scammer. I answer the phone and some guy with a strong accent starting telling my computer was compromised and he was from microsoft calling to help fix my computer. I played along. I asked what I had to do and she told me to click on a combination of keys. I told him I did. He said he wasn't getting any response and to try again. I again told him I did as he told me to do. We did this a few times more and I could tell he was getting frustrated with my ignorance. Finally after about five minutes I asked why when I searched his number it came up as a scam. He got mad and said, "***** you!" and hung up.

Another one I got through email. The scammer told me he invaded my "device" while I was watching ****, and some very good port at that. He said he would give me a key or something to remove the spyware if I paid something like $2500 in bitcoin to an account or he was going to post the video, along with videos of me watching the **** on social media. Oh well, no be deal, just a scammer. I talked to a few other people and they got the same thing. I got maybe half a dozen of the same exact emails with the exact same wording until I got one that had a password I had used in various sites, non **** sites. That upset me because how did this one guy get one of my passwords. It was a very simplistic password I hadn't used in years but was still fairly unique A day or two later I got a notice from Credit Karma telling some accounts had been hacked, one being Linkedin. I checked and the password the scammer used was the one I used for Linkedin. Fix it and never got another **** scam message.

 

Bobj, I’ve had both of those scams multiple times. The password they found hadn't been used in years, and then only for stuff that I considered unimportant, extra email addresses, one time purchases when no CC info is used, etc. I knew right away that he didn’t have video of me because I always keep my camera covered unless I’m on a zoom or FaceTime.

Another scam...phone rings, guy introduces himself and asks “can you hear me?” They record your answer and uses it later in the call. Don’t say yes to that question, say something like “what can I do for you today”.

 

Scammers are the scum of the earth. On Jan. 4th, this year, our home phone number was hacked by RoBo callers. Here is the scam:
A person would get a phone call showing my name and home number on the caller ID. If the RoBo caller got someone, they would go into the pitch. They claimed they were from Medicare and wanted to verify the Medicare number. If the person did not answer the phone, the caller would leave a message to call my name and my number. We started to get calls, one after another. We made a police report, and called our phone provider. ( Comcast). Comcast dicked around until the 13th, always giving some excuse of they are fixing it. They could not and we had to get a new phone number. which took them days to be able to free my port from the hacker. The end result was we were getting thousands of calls( which we routed to the answering machine voice mail at comcast. We had to leave our phone off hook for the duration. I also filed a complaint with the FBI. We had that phone number for 20 years.

 

These probably can't be labeled as a "scam" but I've experienced both and find them annoying.

I'd get a notice on my phone I got a voice mail, never heard the phone go off although it's in my pocket. I'd check the voice mail and find a message from someone selling something. I did a search and found these were silent voice mail. You can buy a program that makes them. The idea of doing this is to avoid the "no call" rules because the people leaving the voice mail aren't using air time although they know most people will check their voice mails. The argument is that the callers aren't making you check the voice mails and not making you use your air time. I got these silent voice mails numerous times for a while but haven't gotten one in a long time. Maybe the callers realized they ticked off more people than want their servces.

The second is the call from a number having the same exchange number that I have. I would get these every so often not quite realizing what was happening. Then one day I got a call from a very irate person who told me to stop calling him. Some system had been using my phone number as ID when doing robocalls. I explained to the guy that I also have gotten numerous like he had from numbers with a common exchange. I haven't gotten one of those in some time either.

I do still get robocalls and other calls that turn out to be boiler room phone calls but as I'm a business I have to answer every call that comes in. I was getting a spat of phony calls a while back and one day I got one more call from an unknown number and was about to let it pass when I decided to answer. Turned out it was a person looking for my services and I ended up getting a good amount of work out of that person. I can't pass on a call, it could be a legitimate person.