Especially Seniors Victim Of Phone Scammers

Especially to older Internet users get with phone scammers posing as Microsoft employees, victims light up in reality. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) testified this week before a committee of the US Senate.

In the first eight months of this year, the FTC received more than 18,000 complaints about phone scammers, mostly seniors. 76% of people who complained was at least 50 years old and 56% were over 60 years. Three years ago, the FTC conducted an international operation in which six scams, mostly in India, were shut down. Last year there was action taken against the scammers, who have ripped off by the US regulator thousands of consumers for more than 100 million dollars.

To tackle the problem structurally was last year in India, held an international conference in order to develop a long term strategy against this and other forms of phone fraud in India. Last month, there was a follow-up conference, but the problem still remains. Microsoft had previously announced that this year 3.3 million people will be lifted by telephone scammers.

Microsoft Testifies Before US Senate On Phone Scammers

Microsoft yesterday before a committee of the US Senate testified about the growing problem of telephone scammers. According to the software giant, his phone scammers like Microsoft Employees occur and so unsuspecting consumers try to lift the greatest possible fraud taking place in the United States.

It is estimated that every year 3.3 million people from such phone cams victims, mostly elderly. The damage of the fraud is estimated at 1.5 billion dollars. "This equates to nearly one victim every ten seconds, with an average loss of $ 454 per victim," said Athima Chansanchai Microsoft. David Finn asked Microsoft (pdf) at the Senate Committee to investigative services to allow monitoring the issue. There was also asked for better coordination between the various government departments so that call centers may be prosecuted to perpetrate the fraud.

Microsoft Phone Scam Now Also Available In French And German

Microsoft scammers are people for years by awkward to call them up and say that there are problems with their computer at home, but lately also Web sites and pop-ups used. Which let users believe that their computers with a "virus" is infected or has some other problem.

Next, there must be a specific telephone number to be called in order to resolve the problem. This is the number of scammers posing as Microsoft employee or specialist. Then they try to make the victims pay for the removal of the "virus" or the purchase of a virus. The amounts can run into the hundreds of dollars. Thus German victims at a recent campaign for an amount of 389 euro per person scammed. The ads and pop-ups are distributed through malicious advertisements and are bundled with "potentially unwanted programs".

Multilingual

Previously, the text of the pop-ups and websites was always in English and addressed the scam only English. Now scammers target other countries. There are versions in German, found French, Spanish and Japanese. The crooks who answer the phone speak the language. According to anti-virus firm Malwarebytes organisations behind the scam have probably turned several call centers in these countries and they are given instructions on how they can light up people by phone.

"Non-English-speaking countries were previously safe, but scammers have now realised that millions of potential victims are within their reach, particularly in Europe. Since the scam mainly makes social engineering use, they had to find a way to bridge the language barrier and there they have now succeeded, "said analyst Jerome Segura.

Microsoft: 3 Million People Affected By Phone Scammers

In the first six months of this year more than 3 million people are affected by phone scammers posing as employees of large tech companies and trying to educate people on the phone, so Microsoft has to know. Often these scam artists posing as Microsoft Employee. They call consumers at home that there are problems encountered on the computer.

To solve its users, the scammers access to their computer and then must be paid. There are also variations active with pop-ups and advertisements are used for computer problems or warn occur if the helpdesk of a tech company and thus try to mislead consumers to call the phone scammers themselves. According to Microsoft goes mainly to American companies that use foreign call centers.

In a little less than half an hour Microsoft is organizing a panel discussion in Washington DC where trends are discussed in phone cams. Will also examine how consumers can protect themselves against scammers and what steps they should take if the scammers have gotten access to the computer. The panel discussion is live to follow through this page.

Phone scammer: 60% Of People Believe Us

Scammers people through pop-ups let you know that their computer is infected with a virus and they should call a certain telephone number are very successful, claims a Phone Scammer on Reddit , who says he has six months dealing with the phone defrauding people.

When asked how many people have with the scam, the scammer that 40% of people from all kinds of insults, while the remaining 60% actually think they are infected by malware. To solve the problem at least $ 100 was charged, while a virus the same amount had to be paid. Asking prices were, however, depending on the location and the profession that exerted the victim. Something the scammers ask victims.

Initially, the scammer claims that he did not realize that people were ripped off, though he had his suspicions. Eventually, he realized what he was doing and decided to stop. The scammer claims to be an American and says that there are many call centers in the US where the scams are carried out. In his case, which were mainly aimed at Windows users. Called example, a Mac user, then he decided to hang up.

The pop-ups that let users believe they have shown both Windows and Mac users problems, says security firm Blue Coat.Contrary to Blue Coat maintains its Mac users have long targeted by scammers. For example, in 2013 and 2014 all variants of this scam observed that focused on Mac users.