Posted on 08/02/2023 12:59:17 PM PDT by MD Expat in PA
My cell has a “do not disturb” feature, where if it’s on (most times) caller IDs which are not on my favorites list go to voicemail.
If I were CIC, I would send a scud into their office building.
One type of scam is based on fake customer support calls. Some scammer calls and says they are from Microsoft and you have a virus on your computer which they will help you remove.
At that point the scammers convince the victim to allow them to remotely access the victim's computer.
Apparently some clever anti-scamming activists use carefully constructed hacking tools to take over the scammer's computer at that moment and insert various hacking toolkits on the scammer's computer.
And then the fun begins.
Exactly. They do not divulge exactly how they do it but are able to reverse the connection from the virtual machine that the scammer has connected to thinking they’ve found a victim.
And it can be hilarious to watch when someone like Perogi / Scammer Payback shows the scammer all the files they were able to download and then deleted from the scammer’s computer including their personal pics and personal info.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwyP5IkKdGU
But more than just the entertainment value, they get important information on the scam call center’s operations, location, names, sometimes the scammers bank accounts and their money mules located in the US who can be arrested and even sometimes lists of recent and potential victims. In a few cases they get access to listen in live to the scammer’s calls and can contact a victim in real time to let them know they are being scammed and stop it before they lose any money.
I was watching one of the live streams yesterday where they found an elderly woman who was on a call with a scammer and had already sent them $150 but was in danger of losing more as she’d given them access to her computer, her bank account and her CC information.
The scambaiter took the call offline so as to not embarrass her or have her personal information live streamed on YT. The follow up was they guided her through what to do to secure her computer and CC and banking info so the scammers couldn’t take even more.
Unfortunately, these scam call centers can be hard to shut down and the authorities in India are not always cooperative. Although some have been shut down and some scammers have arrested in India.
And while most of the computer tech support and refund scams originate in India, most romance scams originate in Nigeria and lottery and Publishers Clearing House scams originate in Jamaca although scammers can be found coming from Eastern Europe and China. And there are even scammers located in the US – job scammers and car warranty scammers.
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