I meant to get this post out last week, but I got caught up in quite a bit of stuff. Go figure! I also haven’t been posting as much about tech scammers, but it’s somewhat hard to do properly – there are so many videos with so much content that all really kind of is the same. Scammers rarely change tactics, and the most you usually ever see is a variation on an old trick here or there.
Not this time. In this video, YouTube user IT Advocate calls into “SupportBuddy” a pretty well known tech scam company and has quite the unique experience: Once the tech support agent gets access to the machine, it mysteriously, seemingly on command,crashes to a typical Blue Screen of Death.
Now, this is an odd thing considering the standard operation for the anti tech support scam community is to use virtual machine setups (real windows installs inside of special software) to conduct these operations; the systems are usually very clean, with minimal software installed, relatively minimal usage, and since they are running in software, they run virtually no issues with hardware conflicts. Under any normal circumstance, it shouldn’t fail like this.
In this video, it does, however. Time and time again, as soon as he connects. Now, anyone smart might notice that these issues only happened the moment they connect, and put 2 and 2 together: that the connected agent is causing this. Sadly, though, anyone who would fall for a tech support scam isn’t going to be the most skilled when it comes to computers, and probably isn’t thinking straight when they make these calls – the pop ups that predicate tech scams are designed to look professional but at the same time scare the victim into making the support call. Just study the one in start of this video as an example.
The video is long, but it’s quite worth watching and learning from. The scammers naturally claim they didn’t do anything, that they aren’t scammers, etc, on and on.Of course towards the end the latter people whom are talked to pull “tough guy” tactics claiming they can shut off someones internet remotely, etc (all lies). I never understand how these people think that the anti-scammer crowd will somehow be scared by these empty threats.
As always, it’s clear these scammers just don’t have a clue. The community keeps calling, keeps reporting, and slowly, but surely, we keep getting them taken down. I’ve got some slightly older, but still recent enough news to cover on this front sometime, but for now, enjoy the video.