How can I protect someone from support scammers?

mrbell1984 said:

ha ha great idea. Couple of dud VM boxes lay around with auto login n lots of issues lool!!

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Knew I'd get slaughtered for it but it's hardly difficult to keep launching browsers with a target URL from a command.

The "research" bit might put the willies up some people but I'm comfortable with my sexuality, and that stuff does nothing for me, thanks!

Could you not just remove administrator privileges from her account so the remote control software cannot be installed?

PiKe said:

Could you not just remove administrator privileges from her account so the remote control software cannot be installed?

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They are usually portable applications so that won't work. Best to just put all those sites and their IPs as 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file (as a very basic measure). Maybe someone somewhere has already compiled a list...

Pawnless Endgame said:

Get a mobile for them and sign the number up to TPS.

I've had the same mobile number since year 2000, and no tech support calls at all whatsoever. I do get the occasional PPI text message, but TPS can't block those as they come from overseas.

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These people don't give a monkeys about the TPS, they aren't legitimate businesses (and normally overseas). TPS doesn't actually 'block' anything, it's just a database of numbers of customers who don't want to get marketing calls and businesses must abide by the list. Which is why criminal operations don't care about it.

Simple buy android landline phone and block all with held calls. You could place time restrictions on windows maybe ristrict the ability to log in or access the internet at certain hours.

sorry to hijack thread but my dad had this happen to him yesterday, thankfully as soon as they mentioned money he was wise enough to tell them he'll give them a call back once he got his card details as he didn't have them available and gave me a call to ask if I knew what was wrong with his PC as he had Microsoft on the phone, oddly they gave him an 0800 number to call.

I've told him not to use to computer until I get to have a look at it and do some scans but is there anything they will likely of installed in the background or will it just be a case of they try get the payment straight away and give up?

He said they took control of his PC and all he had to do was click OK on a few things and he went along with it until they asked for money.

annoyingly he lives an hour away and today is my first day back at work until Saturday.

From my experience first time was a program called Ammyy for remote and a keylogger. Was pretty easy to fix the keylogger running in processes.

Second time was just RemoteAnywhere and nothing else I could see.

Sadly I did reinstall both times just incase they left something else I couldn't see behind.

How does one find the address of a phone number? Including if it is international.

Really the only way you're avoiding this is to tell them not to let anybody remotely control their PC unless it's you / similar trusted friend or relative. Maybe put a sticker on the monitor.

Alternatively you can look at ways to prevent applications from running outside of the Windows / Program Files directory and give them limited user accounts, but that's then an administrative burden that needs to be picked up by someone.

Maybe they should just use a Chromebox/iPad?

Aside from the suggestions provided so far.

Ask your friend/family member to report it Action Fraud. If enough people report these incidents then they will be made aware and do something about it. Provide them the exact details to help them collate information.

http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud

Alternatively you can report it on their behalf.

Well it was all going well until I locked administrator out of every program via changing user policies...go me .

Yeah I have tried to tell them not to allow anyone other than me but it didn't take hold unfortunately. They seem incapable of putting the phone down on someone I just don't know at the moment . They're not an idiot despite all evidence to the contrary.

As for finding an address you'd have to hope it's listed on Google somewhere really. Assuming it's not spoofed then the prefix gives the country to help narrow it down.

Actually I remember a few years ago someone showed me something that basically restores the system back to a known state every reboot.

Might have been called deep freeze or something... That could work well. You have to unlock it to patch the system obviously but can then re-freeze it. Not sure if it allows reading of say an external HDD for personal files.

That could work to save me reinstalling should it happen again. Preferably I'm trying to prevent it happening in the first place.

Although the new system of not picking up a call until they hear the person on voicemail seems to be working well so far. Called them from various numbers past 2 days not once have they picked up without leaving a voicemail thankfully. Hopefully a combination of the two will prevent it happening again.

Still looking into the BT line but they can't find the paperwork for talktalk.

Just need to try and get past my screw up now lol.

Mynight said:

Very very elderly and sadly all too trusting

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This is the problem isn't it. My mother has been targetted twice now the first time Western Union cancelled the transfer as they knew something wasn't right. The second time she actually phoned me but but I had to convince her to phone the bank and they told her it was a scam only then did she finally believe it was a hoax.

terley said:

Cut off the land-line and give them a basic mobile phone with a super long battery and easy UI that will only allow calls to friends/family.

Remove internet access, they obviously can't be using it for too much anyway? Why not give them a tablet for any internet usage?

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You can't just take their phone and internet away they're not naughty children or criminals for that matter. Its her phone she pays the bills and the lines in her name. She's got a tablet my sister gave her but she never uses it.

Pawnless Endgame said:

Yeah similar here. Sales & marketing manager of where I used to work has been selling computers since the 1980s. Not a typical (read: clueless) sales bod for the purple shirts. He knows his PC specs, would be able to reformat/reinstall Windows if needs be and will attempt to resolve tech issues before calling us techs out. Then 2 years ago, "Microsoft" phoned him up and they got as far as initiating RDP, installed something via it before he wised up and ended the call. No money taken, but we did have to re-image his PC

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I had some fun and games cleaning up the PC the first time they install some pretty obscure software I've never seen before and not the usual TeamViewer etc. I just re-imaged it in the end safer that way.