[clug] Offline snooping [now lame telephone scammers]

[Mike Carden]

Since we have drifted off topic...

I have an Internode 'Naked' ADSL plan that affords me the VOIP analogue of
a PSTN phone number and it happens to be in the 6140 xxxx number range.

With the advent of mobile phones, pervasive internet, personal messaging,
email, and name-your-technology, my Ye Olde Land Line is so rarely used by
me or my family that *any* incoming call can be treated with suspicion.

Accordingly, if the home phone rings, it takes a while for us all to agree
that it's not the noise from one of our forgotten 4th devices, and I go
looking for a handset.

When I remember which room the charged cordless handset is in and pick it
up, the two second silence on the line reveals 'Overseas Call Centre'.
Excellent.

If they ask for me by name I say "Oh. he's in the other room, I'll get
him." then drop the handset on the bed and walk away. I once checked back
on this after 30 minutes and the scammer was still there. You're welcome.

If they mention something to do with an account I actually have, I take a
deep breath, wheeze into the phone, and say " I killed him this morning"

That last has saved me from lots of grief.

-- 
MC





On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 4:57 PM, Scott Ferguson <
scott.ferguson.clug at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 31/01/14 14:36, Steve Walsh wrote:
> > On 01/31/2014 01:17 PM, steve jenkin wrote:
> >> They pretended to be from Telstra Bigpond ("your Internet access is
> >> about to be cut-off"),
> >> from Windows Technical Support ("you have some malware on your
> computer")
> >> and from somewhere else in Microsoft. ("you have to install an update").
> >
> > oh. Wow. Really? You're seeing that from my computer? right now? hang on
> > a sec
> > <cover handset and have muffled conversation about traffic interception>
> >
> > Hi, still there? Can I confirm you actually saw the traffic come from
> > the computer? You did? Ok. hang a sec
> >
> > <cover handset and have another muffled conversation about this>
> >
> > Still There? Great. Look, I'm going to need your interception
> > enforcement tracking number. We need to escalate this, because that
> > traffic should never have been seen. Yeah, IET number, used by law
> > enforcement to track any wiretaps or traffic interception. You should
> > have one if you're seeing that sort of traffic profile, especially from
> > this particular computer. That's the whole reason we have IETNs,
> > afterall, to stop people freaking out about the traffic we produce when
> > we're going after a targeted individual. Should start with 3 digits, two
> > hex characters, be about 16 characters total? I'll need yours and your
> > supervisors details so that I can get this sorted out.
> > Hello?
> > Hello?
> >
> > I haven't had a call back since.
> >
>
> Sweet. It's not like the Pakistani scammers know how D Class ISDN tap
> warrants actually work.
> You could also feed them some mumbo jumbo about their VOIP connection -
> they might expect you to read the caller ID, but I'd guess they wouldn't
> expect you to know it's VOIP. "Not your fault, I did the same job as you
> years ago and I appreciate how lazy the remote desktop support queue
> managers are - I'll get one of our field officers over there to, um,
> explain things immediately".
>
> Kind regards
> --
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