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Trolling a Windows support scammer

arstechnica.com

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Re: Trolling a Windows support scammer

#11

Post by helthanatos »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #3

Trolling tech support scammers is a popular past-time on Reddit, particularly for users of Lenny, a robot that simulates a confused old man who meanders and segues into non-sequitur stories. https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/ This one is easily one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CsEuJNSnh8

Watch the hoax hotel. It is one of the best channels for trolling scammers

Re: Trolling a Windows support scammer

#12

Post by thepacketrat »

Nexxxeh wrote: post #2

2 hours? Amateur! A combination of VirtualBox, Twilio, a VPN and an old i5 laptop allows for far longer scammer frustration. Simply give them remote access (after hiding the VirtualBox tools) then turn down the core count, memory allocation and cap execution to 10%. Have the VM connected to the VPN at the Host end to give it Internet access without exposing your own network. Randomly disconnect the VPN for extra hila…

I did have other things to do... (I'm the author.) Also, I fumbled on the VM setup with VirtualBox—should have just used my vSphere Windows 10 instance, but it was already set up for sandboxing malware.

Re: Trolling a Windows support scammer

#13

Post by ChrisBland »

I too try to ruin this business model by keeping them on the phone and wasting as much of their time as possible. One time I may or may not have been able to convince one of them to download a remote toolkit under the guise of sending him my 'banking and computer folder' to sort out the issue so I didn't 'go to jail'. I then may or may not have had fun bouncing around their network, opening CD drives, playing sounds, really brought me back to 8th grade hacking. I also may or may not have nuked their computers on my way out.

Re: Trolling a Windows support scammer

#14

Post by hartator »

ChrisBland wrote: post #13

I too try to ruin this business model by keeping them on the phone and wasting as much of their time as possible. One time I may or may not have been able to convince one of them to download a remote toolkit under the guise of sending him my 'banking and computer folder' to sort out the issue so I didn't 'go to jail'. I then may or may not have had fun bouncing around their network, opening CD drives, playing sounds,…

You may or may not be awesome.

Re: Trolling a Windows support scammer

#15

Post by debacle »

I did this once. Wound up being put on a list after the first time, and it seemed like they would give every new guy to me to call.

After the last time, I actually got started talking to the guy about their software and business model and stuff. He seemed really proud of their software, saying that it was probably better than most commercial AVs out there, but that they make the calls that they do simply as part of their business model. I gave him a few pointers on how to show someone they had actually been hacked, and sent him on his way.

Haven't gotten a call back since.

Re: Trolling a Windows support scammer

#17

Post by kelvin0 »

Yup, been there done that too ... just could not resist. I stalled for 1/2 hours and finally I feigned acceptance to give them access to my PC to 'fix' it. At the last moment I asked the scammer if he could put me in contact with law enforcement so they could give me some assurance this was not a scam. Without skipping a beat, the scammer on the phone tells me "OK. Hold I will connect you to chief of police...", then not even changing his voice he start off again " Yes, hello chief of police here, all is good these are not scammers..." and then hangs up!

You can't make that stuff up, I laughed my head off. Good times.

Re: Trolling a Windows support scammer

#18

Post by kelvin0 »

ChrisBland wrote: post #13

I too try to ruin this business model by keeping them on the phone and wasting as much of their time as possible. One time I may or may not have been able to convince one of them to download a remote toolkit under the guise of sending him my 'banking and computer folder' to sort out the issue so I didn't 'go to jail'. I then may or may not have had fun bouncing around their network, opening CD drives, playing sounds,…

I wish I had (may or may not have) done it myself!

Re: Trolling a Windows support scammer

#19

Post by dhimes »

ChrisBland wrote: post #13

I too try to ruin this business model by keeping them on the phone and wasting as much of their time as possible. One time I may or may not have been able to convince one of them to download a remote toolkit under the guise of sending him my 'banking and computer folder' to sort out the issue so I didn't 'go to jail'. I then may or may not have had fun bouncing around their network, opening CD drives, playing sounds,…

I think I love you.

Re: Trolling a Windows support scammer

#20

Post by rhapsodic »

I did this once, but I didn't want to continually talk to the guy to keep him on the phone. So when he told me to "turn my computer on", while it was supposedly booting, I said, "now it says, 'Installing Windows Updates, 14%, please don't turn off your computer'." And I kept giving him updates about every three minutes, "now it says 18%, gee it's really moving slow..." All told, I burned about 15 minutes on just the bootup. Then I told him, "hold on, there's someone at my front door, I'll see what they want and I'll be right back." I kept him on a muted speaker phone while I continued working. Every few minutes he would say "sir, are you there?" and eventually he gave up and hung up. The total time of the call was about 28 minutes, which is much much less than this guy's 2 hours, but it consumed very few brain cycles on my part. We never even got to the part where he was telling me what to do on my PC.
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