Demartek Comments on Another Tech Support Phone Scam

30 September 2015

By Dennis Martin, Demartek President

Earlier today one of our employees was called from the telephone number 860-951-7532 from a person claiming to be with the Geek Squad. Our employee recognized this immediately as a scam attempt, but played along with it for a few minutes. Here is the conversation.

Scammer: I’m from Geek Squad and have a list of names of people whose computers are infected. Please turn on your computer, it will only take around five minutes to clear the infection.

Demartek: Which computer?

Scammer: How many computers do you have?

Demartek: A lot. What is the hostname of the computer in question?

Scammer: The product ID is 331623792945 (reading it slowly).

Demartek: How do I find out which computer has that product ID?

Scammer: How many computers do you have?

Demartek: A lot.

Scammer: I was able to log in to your webserver without your consent and could see it was infected. What kind of network connection does it have?

Demartek: I don’t trust you so I’m not going to give you information about my network.

Scammer: We are being recorded and everything is very secure and nobody else will get this information. There is no need to be afraid of anything happening.

Demartek: What is the IP address of the webserver that you logged into?

Scammer: It is illegal to obtain the IP address, we cannot do that!

Demartek: It’s not illegal to obtain IP addresses, IP addresses are exchanged every time a connection is made over the Internet. What is the hostname of the infected computer?

Scammer: Due to modern technology we do not have that information.

Demartek: Hung up the phone.

Our employee had to keep from laughing during this call. So did I when I heard this. I believe that the scammer was working from some sort of script and was clearly not from a reputable organization. Based on the scammer’s answers, we concluded that he was not from the real Geek Squad, had not logged into our webserver nor did he have any real data about any of our computers. It appears that most, if not all, of his assertions were false.

This type of telephone “tech support scam” has been occurring for several years and is well-documented. The real Geek Squad has multiple pages on its web site warning of this scam. Here is one of them:
Geek Squad Blog: Online Virus Removal Scams.

This scam is similar to one we received in July 2015.

You may also want to read the Demartek Identity Theft Prevention Tips and Commentary, available in English and Spanish.

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