OT: Help with internet scam/identity theft
 

Long story but it seems that I fell into some sort of scam after getting a warning page from "Windows Defender" (or not?) after clicking on what I thought was the link to a major USA based retailer's site. A phone number for support that appeared to be from Microsoft showed on the window but I was leery and searched for MS support on the phone and came up with another number. Let the person at that number prompt me through several procedures but when it got to the point where he wanted me to enter my bank name in the browser I decided that I had stumbled onto another scammer.

My internet access is all through the cell phone, there is no other service where I live other than satellite. Since the issue, I have switched phones but not the service/phone number. I'm using my laptop to post this and haven't connected the PC that I was using when the problem originated.

How can I contact Microsoft and be sure it's a legitimate connection? If I am able to contact them will they be able to clear my PC of problems or should I scrap it and buy a new one?

Recent Microsoft operating systems have a Windows Defender built in. There should be a c9ntrol panel on the right end of your tool bar. That would be a good place to start.

Well done for stopping when you did. My mum was not so fortunate when 'Microsoft' called her. They locked her out of her own computer and she lost data as the encryption they used could not be worked around. Fortunately I had by chance taken a backup of her PC about two weeks prior to this happening.

I digress.

'Microsoft' will never contact you. Similarly, its unlikely that a consumer would contact Microsoft themselves for assistance. Its a real pig to contact them. I contact them all the time but that's because I work in IT and we utilize expensive Microsoft services.

You absolutely do not need to buy a new computer, nor do you need to contact Microsoft. If you are very wary of using that computer again, you can follow these steps to 'reset' your PC back to factory settings, if you're on Windows 10 or 11 that is:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...9-e6f2b48d275e

If you don't want to do that, running a virus and malware scan through Windows Defender should be your first action:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...e-fb2664201f29

I would not connect this computer to the internet until you're satisfied that everything's under control.

I am thankful for the smart people who post here and add valuable insight, especially about stuff I know very little about.

So - thank you jk

I know there's far worse things happening in the world, but seeing older people lose their entire retirement funds to scam call centers in India (not xenophobic, its just how it is) really breaks my heart. So I'll always do whatever I can to help someone out with this kinda thing :)

Getting wiped out financially from a scam ranks pretty high up there . Just being targeted, leaves you with a sense of being violated and your privacy compromised.

India is just the cheap labor. The brains behind the scam are somewhere else and it could be your neighbor. or some Russian living in Dubai.

The UK broke up an international scamming crime ring yesterday which shows just how organized the scamming ecosystem is. Unfortunately, it took the police 3 years to do this.

https://news.sky.com/story/dozens-ar...fline-13117618

Last year, the Japanese had several Japanese nationals extradited from the Philippines who were actually running a scam targeting Japanese from inside a prison in Philippines.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64578543

You can't make this **** up.

I always get scam calls and those fishing pages when i visit p0rn sites but they are so obviously scams that i sometimes even call the numbers just to fk with them and waste their time. I would have a full blown conversation with them and when they ask for my address I tell them i'm from 1234 india street and they threaten to call the cops on me but i keep going pretending like nothing happened. the more time you waste the less victims they are gonna scam. it's quite fun for me because I'm quite anti social and don't have alot of friends to talk to.

My coworker's elderly mother was scammed out of $30k recently. Lost most of her retirement savings, racked up huge credit card debt, and thus the ability to continue paying the mortgage on her condo. She is now selling the condo and moving in with her daughter.

Scamming is no joke, elderly or not.

Over the years I have used the resources at 'Bleeping Computer'. They have their own scan tool that has been crowd-sourced that will do an exhaustive analysis of any Windows computer.

They also have a quite active volunteer community. The program runs and will provide you with a 'fix list' of problems found--but you need to know what you are doing since it is a powerful tool. If the fixes are straight-forward, you can do them and be done. If not...

After the initial scan if you have questions or concerns they ask you to post your results, and will offer help (quite technical) to clear your computer, but it can take a while for one of their volunteer mods to respond. But I have followed threads where the help is incredibly dedicated and thorough.

Here's the link to the initial scan tool:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/for...ery-scan-tool/

(Their website has been reorganized so it feels less familiar to me, but here's the forum that deals with infected computers:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/for...-removal-help/ )

The problem with relying on Windows Defender is that infections will often make their first step turning off Defender and/or stopping it from receiving updates--so the advantage of starting with the Bleeping program is that it will not be restricted or compromised in anyway by what may already be running on your computer.

Malwarebytes also offer a free trial of their service--download and install after the initial scan, and it will likely find a whole bunch more niggling bits of crap that you can do without.

My daughter was a victim of a online scam a number of years ago. She installed Malwarebytes Premium on her computer and has had no problem since.

I get two emails a day from AT&T letting me know there has been a security breach and to sign in. The first ones had secutity in the subject line.

Great job on being aware and stopping when things did not seem true.


There is is a term used in the cybersecurity world "Zero Trust" which is exactly what it sounds like and "civilians" should follow as well:
DO NOT TRUST anything unless they/it can prove they are the real thing

A few things to consider:
- Put a Fraud Alert on your credit report. This is a temporary solution to be used when one may have been scammed
- Freeze your credit report (this is the more permanent solution that locks it and nobody can do anything until you unlock it)
- Change all your passwords and make them strong passwords
- Use a password manager or good old pen and paper to store your passwords (this is what I do for my elderly parents)
- Put multi-factor authentication on all your accounts

- When someone calls you from a bank, credit card company, utility company, or anything, DO NOT trust them. Tell them thank you for the information and then hang up. Go to your latest bill/statement/back-of-credit-card and call that number back (do not search online for the number because you may be lead to a scam number or website), explain what you were told on the previous call, and ask if any of it is true.

I just got a letter in the mail that was supposedly from UPS, saying that I owed $327 for a 1 day air freight shipment. It had a tracking number that was real, but also an account number that I don't have. I reported it to UPS, but obviously, someone at least has my name and mailing address, which is probably easy to find.

On my tablet, I'm being bombarded with notifications that I have viruses, but I have Norton protection set up that says all is ok. If I clear my notifications, I get new ones only minutes apart.

Our home computers have Malwarebytes Premium and we've had no issues. Most impressive to me, it was on my son's computer when he was in high school and it protected a teenage boy with internet access.

One thing to add to this, is software can't stop human error. If an attacker manages to convince a victim that its their bank calling and that they 'need to go and buy gift cards', the attacker doesn't even need to involve a computer.

A computer is just one part of a scam.

The Federal Trade Commission has a surprisingly good section about scams for anyone who wants to read more from a trusted source:

Here's info about the very, very common gift card scam: https://consumer.ftc.gov/gift-card-scams

And some info on how to avoid scams:

https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-avoid-scam

As someone else stated above, zero trust is really important. Consider that everyone is a bad actor. Call from your bank? Tell them you'll call them back. Call from someone telling you that you have an overdue invoice? Tell them that you'll call the number on the legitimate website of the business. PayPal emailing you telling you that you owe them money? Ignore the email and sign into PayPal and see if its true. Etcetera.