Comment by Deestan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Deestan | Hacker News Reader

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> pretend you are following their instructions for as long as possible

It's not just fun, it's a very responsible thing to do. Every minute they spend with you is a minute they don't spend screwing over someone else.

But don't end with "Ubuntu doesn't have that" or "I only have a Mac, sorry" or some other snarky comment. Just fake stupidity until they give up. They are constantly tuning their scams based on successful and unsuccesful cons, and if they realize you're screwing with them they'll just filter you out of that. Or worse, they'll realize that "calling from the windows" tipped you off and change it to "Microsoft Support Associate" or something.

If you instead come across as someone who believes the "calling from windows" bit, but for some reason aren't able to open the remote control software ("i try to download it but the screen moves?" or "when i click RUN, it says dotnet could not complete the operation?"), you will reinforce the stupid parts of the scam, and possibly have them waste time trying to research the technical difficulty you "experienced".

I wonder why they are not also targeting Macs?

I guess they are trying to get money out of people and Mac users probably have more money (on a broad average).

I suppose they say they are calling from "Windows Support" but would it be a far stretch to also claim to represent someone from Apple? Or put someone else on the line under the premise of transferring you to Apple.

> Mac users probably have more money (on a broad average).

I sadly suspect this is part of the reason. They have more money and chose a Mac because they are educated and can get a decent salary and mentally independent enough to make a conscious purchasing decision.

If you just obediently go with what the trustworthy computer salesman pushes at you, you end up with a Windows computer. And obedient trusting people are what the scammers want to target.

They have more money and chose a Mac because they are educated and can get a decent salary and mentally independent enough to make a conscious purchasing decision.

I'm going to have to disagree with that. I know plenty of people (with money, yes) that want to "get a Mac". There's no mentally independent purchasing decision, it's just what other people have, and they look cool.

As it happens, it's a good choice. But it could easily not be, and they'd still do it.

Perhaps even knowing enough to discern between a Mac and PC is enough to make them a poor mark.

Notice that they are saying "Windows support" not "Microsoft Support", not knowing that Windows is a product from Microsoft would suggest they are looking for people with a very low level of knowledge.

I'm guessing retired people who have a good pension coming in.

OTOH that must put an upper limit to the amount people are willing to spend to get their computers back from the scammers. If you only paid $300 for a PC from wallmart you won't pay more than that surely.

> Notice that they are saying "Windows support" not "Microsoft Support", not knowing that Windows is a product from Microsoft would suggest they are looking for people with a very low level of knowledge.

They do this to avoid being cornered. On one occasion, when screwing with one of the callers, I had a little rage fit accusing them of breaking all kinds of laws. The "manager" informed me that "We never claimed that we were calling from Microsoft, we're calling from Windows Tech Support, which is the name of our company." The agents are very careful not to say they're calling from Microsoft. I suspect that this is some attempt at circumventing exposure to local fraud laws wherever they are based. I'm not saying it will be effective, mind you; just that I suspect that's why.

It could also be that they're trying to filter out people who know "Windows support" sounds dodgy. This also fits with the fact that they still seem to all have Indian accents -- an immediate off-put to those who have heard about these scams. People who don't hang up when they hear the words "Windows support" coming from someone with an Indian accent would probably be very much more likely to fall for it.

I have to agree and disagree - lots of Mac owners have them because their parents bought them, but it goes both ways of course.

The target audience is for the non-tech savvy. These people, I imagine, are people who spent very little on a PC/laptop, most-likely running Windows.

So, I wouldn't break it down by who has more money, but by who they are more likely to get money out of.

Not necessarily true. People store a lot of important personal information on computers, and would hate to lose them.

That's perhaps one of the reasons this scam can be so effective.

I recently had an intelligent, highly educated, highly paid woman tell me that "Macs are immune to viruses".

Education and money don't necessarily translate to domain expertise in everything.

I don't have to tell you that Macs aren't immune to viruses, just that they're targeted less. Like malicious software, there simply aren't enough Macs out there for the scammers to give a shit about, yet.

You don't go trawling in your garden pond when you live next to the Atlantic Ocean.

> I recently had an intelligent, highly educated, highly paid woman tell me that "Macs are immune to viruses".

I don't doubt that, but you can't really refute a general argument with a single data point. It's not as if I said "all Mac users are more intelligent than all Windows users", which would be nonsense.

"Women in IT are generally paid less than men." cannot be refuted by "I know a lady who makes a ton of money in IT."

You make a completely unfounded generalization and then ask ME for citations?

You first bub.

Edit: and frankly, I don't see how you're refuting my point that being intelligent and educated doesn't necessarily make you a domain expert in fields you have little experience in.

Or are you the kind of guy who lectures the mechanic with 30 years experience on how to fix your car?

Mac are still only ~9% of the market. I suspect that targeting Macs would involve a lot of work for relatively little payback.

I screw with these guys almost every time they call, but I try my best not to let on that I'm screwing with them. I usually get off the phone by making an excuse like "my battery is dying" or I hang up mid-sentence so they think the call dropped. That way I don't get taken off their lists.

Anyway, I will occasionally tell them that I have a Macintosh computer, which results in one of a couple responses:

1) Often, the person calling has no idea what I'm talking about and continues to instruct me to click the Start Menu. Obviously the people making these calls aren't computer savvy; they're just reading from a script, trying to earn a living.

2) They hang up without saying anything. I mean, why waste the time, right?

The other day, I got a surprise though. The caller instructed me to open Finder, then click on Go in the menu bar and select Utilities. From there, he had me launch Console and explained that these were all system errors and started toward having me visit a LogMeIn Rescue support domain (can't remember which one).

I was totally unprepared. Normally I run them around the mill in the process of faux-launching Event Viewer on Windows, but on the Mac, I just rolled right through the instructions. I ended up just hanging up on the caller, but it's clear that at least some of them are targeting Mac users as well now.

Perhaps because their targets (marks) do not know what a Mac is, and opening with "Do you have a Mac or Windows?" will confuse people.

You would think the mark (if they know the difference) would say "You just told me I have a virus, so you should know that."

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