Even Scammers posing as Rubbermaid Customer Care can convince people to let them on your pc.

[+Warwagon MVC]

This week, I got a call from a customer who looked up the Rubbermaid support number on the internet because they wanted to order a replacement part.

 

Well the number they got must have been a scam number posing as Rubbermaid support because once called, they convinced them that the email address they gave "Rubbermaid" was being used by someone else and that they must have a virus on their computer.

 

So the person lets them connect onto their computer ... you know where the story goes from here *insert any tech support scammer story* .. they didn't give them any money though because they got suspicious of them.

 

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

19 minutes ago, warwagon said:

This week, I got a call from a customer who looked up the Rubbermaid support number on the internet because they wanted to order a replacement part.

 

Well the number they got must have been a scam number posing as Rubbermaid support because once called, they convinced them that the email address they gave "Rubbermaid" was being used by someone else and that they must have a virus on their computer.

 

So the person lets them connect onto their computer ... you know where the story goes from here *insert any tech support scammer story* .. they didn't give them any money though because they got suspicious of them.

Did they open Event Viewer and show him all the viruses (warnings)?  Also ... all the services that were stopped indicating a virus.  Also do a "tree" in command prompt and after it is done get shown x virus or the Windows license has expired.  

 

At least your customer didn't pay anything ... also lucky they didn't put a syskey on it and/or delete his/her stuff.

 

/sigh.  Seen too many of those videos on YouTube.  Hard to believe that people fall for it ... though my friends dad did.  

[Gotenks98]

The tubberware company?? Really?? Seriously??? this doesn't get any more stupider than that. Why would anyone be this stupid to let them on the computer over some crap like that. Its stories like this that make me lose all faith in humanity.

[+Warwagon MVC]

25 minutes ago, Gotenks98 said:

The tubberware company?? Really?? Seriously??? this doesn't get any more stupider than that. Why would anyone be this stupid to let them on the computer over some crap like that. Its stories like this that make me lose all faith in humanity.

That was pretty much my same reaction when I got off the phone.

[+BudMan MVC]

These people called them?? So they called the scammers?  Yeah not buying it.. Something wrong with the whole story..

 

So they called this number that comes up when you google..

 

How stupid are these people that found some bogus number when looking for rubbermaid number??

 

[+Warwagon MVC]

3 minutes ago, BudMan said:

These people called them?? So they called the scammers?  Yeah not buying it.. Something wrong with the whole story..

 

So they called this number that comes up when you google..

 

How stupid are these people that found some bogus number when looking for rubbermaid number??

 

Happens all the time, people google a number and calls the first one that shows up with the word "AD" next to it.

But you are correct, that is the easy way to find numbers.

[+BudMan MVC]

So your saying googles ads points to scammers phone number?  Did they report this to google?

[Jim K Global Moderator]

That is their support number ... according to Rubbermaid.

 

http://www.rubbermaid.com/en-US/contact-information

 

Contact Information

Inquiries related to Rubbermaid Consumer Products, please use the contact information below.

Rubbermaid Consumer Care
4110 Premier Drive
High Point, NC 27265
USA
Please do not ship packages to this address as they cannot be received.

Toll Free: 888-895-2110
Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 5:00pm, Eastern

[+Warwagon MVC]

9 minutes ago, BudMan said:

So your saying googles ads points to scammers phone number?  Did they report this to google?

As far as how stupid they are .... oh you have no idea,

 

still the principle of the thing, regardless of were they got the number from, they were calling for a replacement part and shouldn't have been that easily fooled to let someone remotely connect to their machine

[+BudMan MVC]

that they can not even lookup the support number for a major company.. I wonder how they remember to breath   Do they have drool running down their chins and wear a helmet when they get taken outside by their care giver?

 

So you provide tech support for "special" housing in your area?  Do they ever pick you up in the short bus? heheheh

[Jim K Global Moderator]

12 minutes ago, BudMan said:

that they can not even lookup the support number for a major company.. I wonder how they remember to breath   Do they have drool running down their chins and wear a helmet when they get taken outside by their care giver?

yea, not sure how they managed it.  I did a couple of variations (like rubermaid, rubbermade, rubermade...spaces in between the words) ... but didn't see anything malicious.  Google would correct it and display the proper support number.  /shrug

 

No idea how they pulled it off. 

[+Warwagon MVC]

11 minutes ago, BudMan said:

 I wonder how they remember to breath  

HA! I thought I was the only person who says that!

[User6060]

Sometimes legit support companies will outsource (unknowingly) to scammers and keep the same number. 

[+Warwagon MVC]

42 minutes ago, Co_Co said:

Sometimes legit support companies will outsource (unknowingly) to scammers and keep the same number. 

That's what i'm wondering too

[+Warwagon MVC]

Today I got call today from a person who said ...

 

They purchased a new version of Norton Internet Security from Walmart. They get home follow the directions on the card and proceed to install it. 1/2 way during the install, the install says it fails and says to call Norton at this number. They call the number, the person on the other end of the phone wants to log into the computer. Then proceed to say the computer has a bunch of Virus. When it gets to the point of paying, they tell the person that to protect their credit card number they would do "iTune cards, to the tune (no pun intended)  of $300" instead. .... and they do it ... *face palm*

 

Then 30 mins after that

 

I get a call from a person who gots home for lunch and who's kid was on the computer. They get the you are infected box with a phone number, so they call it and let them on the computer.

 

Then 2 hours after that,

 

I get a call from a guy I know who got the fake popup with a phone number and was smart enough to call me before calling it asking me if it was a scam or not.

[helpifIcan]

Yep! I get 2 or 3 calls a month from friends & relatives about the same thing.

Some call before they do anything and others after they get stung.

After I get them out of their mess I tell them to send me the $260.00, still waiting.

[+Warwagon MVC]

3 minutes ago, helpifIcan said:

Yep! I get 2 or 3 calls a month from friends & relatives about the same thing.

Some call before they do anything and others after they get stung.

After I get them out of their mess I tell them to send me the $260.00, still waiting.

I know right. Makes me feel like i'm not charging enough if they give someone $300 at the drop of a hat.

[restroom]

My parents get these a lot. Luckily they usually call me and ask if its real etc. They even got to the point now that they tell the person their son works in IT for the past 16 years, so they know there is no issue. Sometimes they will get aggressive and DEMAND to speak to me or DEMAND they let them on their PC with threats as much as "you have child porn on your PC and will go to prison unless you let us remove it!"

 

These people are ruthless and prey on the elderly or less knowledgeable people out there. Its disgusting really. Sadly I have never had such a call, but would be interested in stringing them along, or even letting them have access to a virtual box Linux environment just to pee them off.

[MikeChipshop Member]

On 02/07/2016 at 3:41 PM, jjkusaf said:

yea, not sure how they managed it.  I did a couple of variations (like rubermaid, rubbermade, rubermade...spaces in between the words) ... but didn't see anything malicious.  Google would correct it and display the proper support number.  /shrug

 

No idea how they pulled it off. 

See it quite a lot on non-tech savvy comps around this way, i get called to clean up. Generally the dodgy software will manipulate the Google results and squirt in a bunch of dodgy ones.

 

[+Warwagon MVC]

3 minutes ago, restroom said:

My parents get these a lot. Luckily they usually call me and ask if its real etc. They even got to the point now that they tell the person their son works in IT for the past 16 years, so they know there is no issue. Sometimes they will get aggressive and DEMAND to speak to me or DEMAND they let them on their PC with threats as much as "you have child porn on your PC and will go to prison unless you let us remove it!"

 

These people are ruthless and prey on the elderly or less knowledgeable people out there. Its disgusting really. Sadly I have never had such a call, but would be interested in stringing them along, or even letting them have access to a virtual box Linux environment just to pee them off.

What I want to do is have a VM with hidden file extensions and a piece of ransomware renamed passwords.txt.exe, with a notepad icon and put it in my documents then let them on the VM when they call

[restroom]

16 minutes ago, warwagon said:

What I want to do is have a VM with hidden file extensions and a piece of ransomware renamed passwords.txt.exe, with a notepad icon and put it in my documents then let them on the VM when they call

To be fair, I'm not sure how clever these scammers really are. I'm sure if you tried connecting to THEIR machine, rather than letting them on yours, they would likely accept it. But would also be interesting to see if they fell for the ransomware trick too.

[shockz]

24 minutes ago, restroom said:

My parents get these a lot. Luckily they usually call me and ask if its real etc. They even got to the point now that they tell the person their son works in IT for the past 16 years, so they know there is no issue. Sometimes they will get aggressive and DEMAND to speak to me or DEMAND they let them on their PC with threats as much as "you have child porn on your PC and will go to prison unless you let us remove it!"

 

These people are ruthless and prey on the elderly or less knowledgeable people out there. Its disgusting really. Sadly I have never had such a call, but would be interested in stringing them along, or even letting them have access to a virtual box Linux environment just to pee them off.

My parents have zero admin rights on their computers and will call me if they need to have something installed. I was tired of having to go over there and deal with these types of scams and issues. Since they're no longer admins, it's no longer a problem.

[restroom]

1 minute ago, shockz said:

My parents have zero admin rights on their computers and will call me if they need to have something installed. I was tired of having to go over there and deal with these types of scams and issues. Since they're no longer admins, it's no longer a problem.

I did this to them once. Then my nephews kept complaining to my dad that they need the rights to do their homework. After a short battle explaining that there is NO need for admin rights in order to google information relating to history, I gave in and gave them admin rights. Not more than 2 hours later my nephew calls me in front of my dad telling me I must have broke something, because he now cant browse... Ends up he was playing some form of "flash" game that required a plug in, that in turn installed all sorts of random ware that redirected searches and Facebook etc. to "bargain" sites.

 

After yet another short battle, explaining to my dad how this happened, he agreed not to let my nephews on the machine any more, whilst leaving the admin rights in place. Each time I go to their house he shows me how most things no longer work and its ALWAYS because my nephews have messed with random software.

[shockz]

3 minutes ago, restroom said:

I did this to them once. Then my nephews kept complaining to my dad that they need the rights to do their homework. After a short battle explaining that there is NO need for admin rights in order to google information relating to history, I gave in and gave them admin rights. Not more than 2 hours later my nephew calls me in front of my dad telling me I must have broke something, because he now cant browse... Ends up he was playing some form of "flash" game that required a plug in, that in turn installed all sorts of random ware that redirected searches and Facebook etc. to "bargain" sites.

 

After yet another short battle, explaining to my dad how this happened, he agreed not to let my nephews on the machine any more, whilst leaving the admin rights in place. Each time I go to their house he shows me how most things no longer work and its ALWAYS because my nephews have messed with random software.

Oh I know your pain! My Aunt had to stay with my parents for a while and continuously complained about not being able to install items. I remoted in and saw her web history and what she was trying to do. Denied that request, she had a fit.

[xendrome]

So user error, got it.