At least some of you might have heard about the Microsoft support scams that have been going on for the last few months. A few of you might have even been at the receiving end of a few such fraud tech support phone calls. This has been going on for many months now taking different phones.
One such Microsoft tech support scam teams busted in UK
The good news is that one such tech support scam team was recently busted by the National Trading Standards eCrime Team in UK. They successfully apprehended Mohammed Khalid Jamil of Luton and his members, who were busy fooling naive Microsoft team customers into believing that they were actually official Windows tech support personnel trying to help them with tech problems for a small fee.
The operation was called Smart Support Guys and they used overseas call centres to make phone calls to such Microsoft customers in UK claiming that they were the Microsoft certified tech support personnel. After convincing these customers about their credentials, they would then gain remote access to their systems with their permission.
Once, they gained control the customer’s system in this manner, they would began installing some malware that would slow the system down considerably. They would then point this problem out to the naive customer and make him pay a ‘small fee’ to fix this problem.
Of course, I should also mention here the fact the tool these ‘Microsoft tech support personnel’ would then use to fix the problem is actually available for free at the Microsoft support website online. It was reported that they used charge such gullible customers anywhere between £35 and £150 for such ‘tech support services’.
Recently, the leader of the group, Mr. Jamil was sentenced to a four month suspended sentence and above £24,000 in fine. Part of this would go towards the courts costs – about £13,929 and about £5,665 would go to the victims.
The chairman of the National Trading Standards Board, Lord Toby Harris made the following statement to the press, “This is a landmark case, as we believe it may be the first ever successful prosecution of someone in the Microsoft scam in the UK. Now that one of the many individuals who been operating this scam have been brought to justice, it’s a stark warning to anyone else that they can be caught and prosecuted.”
One such Microsoft tech support scam teams busted in UK
The good news is that one such tech support scam team was recently busted by the National Trading Standards eCrime Team in UK. They successfully apprehended Mohammed Khalid Jamil of Luton and his members, who were busy fooling naive Microsoft team customers into believing that they were actually official Windows tech support personnel trying to help them with tech problems for a small fee.
The operation was called Smart Support Guys and they used overseas call centres to make phone calls to such Microsoft customers in UK claiming that they were the Microsoft certified tech support personnel. After convincing these customers about their credentials, they would then gain remote access to their systems with their permission.
Once, they gained control the customer’s system in this manner, they would began installing some malware that would slow the system down considerably. They would then point this problem out to the naive customer and make him pay a ‘small fee’ to fix this problem.
Of course, I should also mention here the fact the tool these ‘Microsoft tech support personnel’ would then use to fix the problem is actually available for free at the Microsoft support website online. It was reported that they used charge such gullible customers anywhere between £35 and £150 for such ‘tech support services’.
Recently, the leader of the group, Mr. Jamil was sentenced to a four month suspended sentence and above £24,000 in fine. Part of this would go towards the courts costs – about £13,929 and about £5,665 would go to the victims.
The chairman of the National Trading Standards Board, Lord Toby Harris made the following statement to the press, “This is a landmark case, as we believe it may be the first ever successful prosecution of someone in the Microsoft scam in the UK. Now that one of the many individuals who been operating this scam have been brought to justice, it’s a stark warning to anyone else that they can be caught and prosecuted.”
