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I got this call a few days ago. It was from the Technical Department of my Windows Computer called Global IT. As he puts it they are the “job workers of the Windows”. An Indian guy calling himself Sam informed me that my computer has been sending them errors and warnings. I was just going to have a few minutes of fun with the guy but when he asked if I was the owner of the computer it gave me some time to start a recording and start from the beginning with the guy. They have you open the Event Viewer and look at the errors and warnings. I guess this is enough of a convincer to some that backs up their bogus claims. I was using my laptop computer so I went along with his requests until they wanted to remotely log onto my machine. I said that my internet wasn’t working and he should call back, when they called back I had them play with a fresh copy of Windows XP running in a virtual machine. I let them go through the entire scam until they got to the pitch where they say they can provide a new Windows maintenance warranty for a fee. They wanted immediate payment so I simply told him that I didn’t have a cent. I am wondering what type of phone service they are using to direct their calls from their 646-867-3751 number? I would think the scammers could be tracked down by the person paying for this number.
The video is quite long, here are the highlights.
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October 27th, 2011
Thank you for posting this. Plenty of my customers experience such calls. Now I can forward them this video for their education.
October 27th, 2011
Love it… So funny, he was so close and excited to get the payment and yet confused that you couldn’t do it…. Hahaha…
October 27th, 2011
The number is owned by level 3 communications.
October 27th, 2011
these people have to be found and arrested. this is fraud and extortion.
October 27th, 2011
Yep, I’ve been getting similar calls – they called me at least 6 times! In one of the sessions I’ve also sat through their BS, just to see what they want. Ultimately they directed me to a web site, asking me to install a utility. This is where I stopped and gave them a nice long rant over the phone. The dude was kinda shocked and speechless.
October 27th, 2011
Like e-mail headers, the originating number of a call on the telephone system is set entirely by the originator. All you need is a SIP account or PBX and you can set the caller ID to whatever you want.
Getting a charged placed on your card, or getting a number at which you can call them back might provide a lead. But good luck getting anyone to put effort into investigating these scams.
October 28th, 2011
Read this: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-system/does-microsoft-or-windows-have-any-conenction-with/cfe5373a-9a82-4c4e-a1b1-1ca8e7dd6997
Basically these guys have local politicians and/or police in there pocket or what they are doing is not illegal in India.
Both are possible and likely.
If you have time to kill make them wait as long as possible, it hopefully costs them money and the longer they are talking to you (or waiting to talk to you) the longer they are not talking to some poor grandma who does not know better.
Personally I don’t have time for them and either ask them how they feel about ripping of poor old ladies or tell them what they are doing is illegal and that I am notifying the police (I don’t really though). Both get them to hang up pretty fast!
October 28th, 2011
So, what would be the most shocking, offensive, insulting thing one could say to these people that would really tick them off? I’m not happy just hanging up on these scum, I want to ruin their day.
My personal rule for telemarketing calls is that they must always hang up first. If I can’t get them to hang up on me, I’ve lost the game. The faster I can get them to hang up, the higher the score.
October 28th, 2011
Hi Slon,
Glad you can get some use out of it. Hopefully it lets a few people recognize how they operate and is able to prevent getting scammed.
October 28th, 2011
Hi Andre,
Seems like they were trying to think of anything to get some instant cash gratification.
October 28th, 2011
HI JJ,
Thanks for looking that up. How did you do it by the way? I used the reverse phone number lookup and the closest I could get is that it appeared to be a cell phone in New York.
October 28th, 2011
Hi Jeremy,
Good link. I think it is probably a combination of the Indian police force not having enough resources to crack down on this type of crime and possible some kickbacks to the officials to keep quiet.
October 28th, 2011
Hi Jenny,
I have been getting lots of solicitation calls about long distance phone services, when asked what countries I call the most I just say I have never made a long distance phone call. That is usually the end of the conversation.
October 28th, 2011
[...] support and his computer was messed up. Instead of laughing and hanging up, like I would have done, Alan had the forethought to film the entire scam and post it online for our enjoyment! Not only did Alan think to record it, he managed to get a [...]
October 28th, 2011
Alan, are you really from Winnipeg? If so I’d like to buy you a beer.
October 29th, 2011
You don’t tell them you don’t have a cent. You tell them “Sure, I’d LOVE to have this service, I can’t live without it!!”
Then you drag out their payment for as long as possible.
I just sent it over the internet, didn’t you get it? Come on, you guys are supposed to be smart, how did you lose my payment!
You only increase their disappointment, once they think they’re getting paid. up to that time, they’re thinking “Hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained”.
Once you have them on the hook, saying you WILL give them money, they become emotionally invested.
By the time they give up, their whole day is shot!
October 29th, 2011
George, I like the way you think. That’s a great way to play the game.
One last thing though, before they fully wise up and end the call; you should tell them something intimate about their mom.
October 31st, 2011
@Alan – I work for a telco so I have tools to look that up. However, since you do not. One site you can go to is fonefinder.net
As Keenan said, it’s very easy to ‘spoof’ a number. Some ppl even sell spoofing services (spoofcard.com)…so it may or may not be legit. However, I would still report it to the appropriate agency.
November 6th, 2011
Just for reference, this scam is now active in the UK. My father, and his neighbour had exactly the same call two days ago
November 11th, 2011
Alan,
I’ve had this very thing happen to me, plus other scams, such as a chap in Germany take half payment from me for a Compaq iPaq PDA and they never sent it. I have spent quite some time looking into this sort of thing, familiarising myself with many different scam types.
When it happened to me, I never fell for it. Their delivery is terrible, making the person jump thru plenty of pointless hoops that most people wont be bothered with, and not being the slightest bit convincing. I intended to do something similar to what you did – let them log into a VM and track them, but I just got totally fed up of their poor attempts and called them a bad word and hung up.
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NOTE – ***Be very careful about doing this*** – sometimes these people operate as part of a much larger telephony scam, a big business, as such they have people in other countries too, able to track down some of the people they called who wouldn’t play ball, or others who out them on YT, and ‘muscle’ them so to speak into paying up, or worse.
Playing that game is dangerous, they’re just dumb criminals, make damned sure they don’t have any real info about you, I guess they don’t have your home address, or know of your ownership of this website or your YT account, but am I correct in thinking they have your real phone number? Also perhaps an IP address within your ISP? Sometimes these and others can be combined and tracked back to actual home addresses too.
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You may be aware of the quite well known 419 scam, named after the Nigerian penal code. Check out ’419eater.com’ for some scambaiting techniques (contains really funny hit backs at the scammers!) and check out the hints and tips section, most notably the section about them being potentially very dangerous crims!
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I’m all for hitting back at these human scum, but do so very carefully – stay safe everybody who tries this sort of thing.
November 17th, 2011
wow thank you so much .. yeah i just got a call . crazy f*****s. how did they get my # thats what im thinking of.
November 23rd, 2011
[...] If you haven’t seen part 1 you should watch some of that video to get caught up. [...]
November 23rd, 2011
I don’t mean to be racist, but the Indian IT support just makes me full of rage. The way they seem to just talk down to you, especially us technically savvy users…
XD
Just reached the part from “jack”
Hilariousness.
November 25th, 2011
[...] about this scammer. If you want to check out the whole scam recorded, check out his site at: http://hackedgadgets.com/2011/10/27/hacked-gadgets-has-fun-with-computer-scammer-called-global-it/ (1+ hour of video) and the second part is (my favorite) where he calls the [...]
December 8th, 2011
[...] themselves Global IT) would have me on their do not call list after the fun we had with them in Part 1 and part 2. I figured that would be the last we ever heard of them. Well to my surprise I got [...]
December 9th, 2011
[...] PART THE FIRST: http://hackedgadgets.com/2011/10/27/hacked-gadgets-has-fun-with-computer-scammer-called-global-it/ [...]
December 15th, 2011
[...] is a podcast for Computer Repair Technicians. They were interested to hear first hand about the Global IT / Global PC Protection Scam. Wow I didn’t realize I said um and ah so much, I have to work on [...]
December 19th, 2011
just got a call who stated they were Microsoft Windows Support. Managed to get a phone number based in Manchester Business Park and owned by Tertio listed as computer consultants – beware
December 20th, 2011
my wife got a call about our Windows machine sending them errors, which was pretty funny since i run a linux distro and have educated and interested her in it as well, so she let them get all the way till they wanted her to install a program from a website then asked them to hang up, he wouldn’t and said they were going to I quote “Format remotely the hard drive because your systems is full of virus and infecting our servers” she tried to keep a straight face but he hung up when she couldn’t stop herself from laughing. If she gets a cold call again Im teaching her how to set up a windows VM on the computer and direct them to it, maybe get a nice backtrack or such on their own systems if possible, 3 to 1 says their setup is pretty vulnerable and could be penetrated.
January 28th, 2012
Suddenly realised I have been scammed – what do I do now to rectify the situation. Monies have been payed to them. They have mucked my PC up, etc. Just watched a potted version of the video and realised this.
January 28th, 2012
Further info – the phone number I have been given is 0203 2396593 to contact for customer services – Rose Smith Employee ID: 0786 – they contacted me on 042 5998 1533 number.
The Company the monies went to in US $ was Mercaway – 166 Rue due Faubourg Saint-Honore, 75008 Paris, France Tel: +33 (0)825 85 22 45 – http://www.mercaway.com
Email for Global PC is: support@globalpcprotection.com
January 28th, 2012
Hi Julia,
Call your credit card company and tell them that you have been scammed. If it was this exact company show them this page so they can confirm that it is a scam. They will refund your money. I don’t think they actually install spyware on the systems but I wouldn’t trust it after they have been able to play with it. Backup your important data (pictures, emails etc) and re-install windows to wipe out their possible meddling.
January 28th, 2012
Thanks for the additional info about them.
January 30th, 2012
I has the identical experience as Julia above on Thursday 19th January. I had the same story as posted and I fell for it, How stupid! I too paid monies to Mercaway. Can you believe this, My credit card people blocked it and I phoned them and got it paid. A local company have now reloaded windows and sorted out the complete mess left by these people. Painful lesson learned by me but how can we get the message out to warn others with very slow running computers. Our’s had been running very slow for ages which is why I fell for the story!!.