I Was Scammed (AMMYY Scam)

Parent Cafe
61

<p>I ran into another scam on Craigslist that’s been around for years. I got a message that someone wanted to buy my generator and to please remove it from the list. She added that I had another offer which turned out to be incorrect. She sent a few more emails telling me her family was moving so a moving truck would be dropping by on Saturday to hand me a check and take the generator. I asked her if she had any questions about the item and if she wanted to see it and test it. Naturally she didn’t. Her emails were always in broken English like she was a foreigner.</p>

<p>I googled the woman’s name and info and sure enough it is a scam. I forget the details, but I would have to go to a bank with a check and eventually discover that there was no way to cash the check. I emailed her back telling her the generator was not for sale and I never heard back from her. </p>

<p>The North Carolina scam artist is a rude fellow who doesn’t hesitate to call you names and hang up on you. It’s a small time operation and they will call you back every month telling you it’s urgent to prevent legal action at 5 pm today. A woman called me back five minutes after he hung up on me and verified that they are in North Carolina and didn’t even know they had just called me. I told her I had buddies at Camp Lejeune and a couple of them would be coming to visit her boss later that day. </p>

62

<p>calmom</p>

<p>As I have stated before, it was my weak moment when the call came in and took advantage of me. I lost time and energy in restoring the computer, but did not pay the ransom.</p>

<p>I don’t know if the scammer had penetrated my system, but over the phone he had me type in a DOS command in the “cmd” window and displayed the windows serial number. I forgot what commend it was, but it was not a file for display or any thing, the results by entering the command will scroll over the screen and the last few lines will display the windows serial number. I am sure some one knows the windows system well can tell you the command. </p>

63

<p>tonyk
The scams on Craigslist are many, therefore, when I set up the ads on the Craigslist, I do not allow anyone to email me, they have to call me from the contents I have in the ad, that is the only way to stop Craigslist ad scams.</p>

64

<p>I searched the web using the term “windows show serial number” and get the following answers</p>

<p>click “start”
in windows XP select Run
or in Windows 7 in the space " search program or files"</p>

<p>and type in wmic</p>

<p>a black command line box will display
type in os</p>

<p>Your windows serial number is in the middle of the displayed line,</p>

65

<p>With that command in perspective, I believe the caller/scammer had penetrated my XP system, because they can spell my windows serial number to the letter over the phone. I’d be very worried to use the XP system any more. Not sure if they can penetrate the newer systems (7, 8, 8.1 or Android) or not. I’d switch ASAP for all my systems.</p>

66

<p>Here is an interesting article in today’s NYT about phone scams: <a href=“Phone Swindlers Tap Into Fear and a Sense of Duty - The New York Times”>Phone Swindlers Tap Into Fear and a Sense of Duty - The New York Times;

<p>It mentions this computer scam, along with others.</p>

67

<p>

</p>

<p>Please reread what I wrote yesterday – (the one where I quoted item #3 from the page at <a href=“Securelist | Kaspersky’s threat research and reports”>Securelist | Kaspersky’s threat research and reports; )</p>

<p>I’d suggest that you also go to that page and look at he picture underneath point #3.</p>

<p>The DOS command does NOT bring up your “Windows serial number”. </p>

<p>It brings up the class id for a particular software association built into windows.</p>

<p>See also: <a href=“Redirecting”>http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-security/i-received-a-call-from-someone-claiming-to-be/f446dc12-541a-4dc9-8324-eebf251c4c4f&lt;/a&gt; (Microsoft web site)</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP6C36S5DJc”>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP6C36S5DJc&lt;/a&gt; (YouTube video)</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.welivesecurity.com/2011/07/19/support-desk-scams-clsid-not-unique/”>http://www.welivesecurity.com/2011/07/19/support-desk-scams-clsid-not-unique/&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>Again – that is NOT your windows software serial number!</p>

<p>I understand how you might be fooled by a con artist and I think it’s a good thing that you shared your experience to warn others. </p>

<p>But I don’t understand why you are debating with me after I explained the very simple trick that you fell for.</p>

<p>The scammer is the person who told you what DOS command to enter --, is that scammer reliable? Do you think that the scammer is more reliable than the 4 sites on the internet I have given you, including microsoft.com ?</p>

<p>The scammer played a trick on you. First he told you to do something on your computer that you had never done before, and it pulled up a number.</p>

<p>Then he lied to you and told the number you saw was your windows serial number and you believed him.</p>

<p>But that was not a unique number on your system. That was a number that is on all systems.</p>

<p>You wrote:

</p>

<p>I know the windows system well. I have told YOU the command. It is:</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>If you don’t believe me, go to your command prompt and try it again.</p>

<p>I promise you, I do not have access to your computer, but I can tell you that you will see this line of text near the bottom :
ZFSendToTarget=CLSID{888DCA60-FC0A-11CF-8F0F-00C04FD7D062}</p>

68

<p>Ok calmom, you are right</p>

69

<p>We got the same call. I told him I don’t actually own a computer, and was rewarded with a few seconds of confused babbling.
Figured if he could lie to me I could lie to him.</p>

70

<p>I got that call a while back. Caller had a thick Russian accent. I told her I do not converse with people who I do not know and hung up. She called right back and told me I would be “sorry” if I didn’t take her instructions as my computer was infected and would crash. Husband took over from there and believe me she did NOT call back!</p>

<p>What sad losers these people are. Scum of the earth. I especially feel bad for the elderly or those less aware that get tangled up in this sort of thing. </p>

71

<p>I love the call me back on my other line number then giving them the local police phone number. What a great idea.</p>

72

<p>Calmom, so does Google provide us with a malicious information because I also searched for serial number and that popped up first. </p>

73

<p>Calmom, Sorry I did not have much time to reply.</p>

<p>You are right on that assoc command, however, I have not used that command ever for my life and when I was on the phone under the gun, I did not know that CLSID was not the Windows ID and in my weak moment, I truly believe the caller was from Microsoft and let him enter.</p>

74

<p>Thanks for posting about this. I have put a warning on my facebook page about it. I don’t tend to answer calls from numbers I don’t know but my husband loves to get the telemarketers and scammers on the phone and string them along so if they call he will be in for some fun. Good to be forwarned though.</p>

75

<p>@‌artloversplus - I understand- I am not faulting you – I just wanted to point out to you that the way they tricked you about the CLSID was part of the scam. It’s part of the psychology of how it works – for example, if a burglar showed up at the front door and asks to be allowed into your house, you would not even open the door, and certainly not let the person in. But if there is a person on your doorstep wearing a jumpsuit with the name of your local utility company, and that person quickly flashes a fake ID card saying that they work for the utility and says he needs to come in to check for gas leaks – you might very well allow that person in. He has distracted you from focusing on the reason he says he wants entry (gas leak or computer virus), to focusing on a different lie of proving his credentials. So he fools you and wins over your trust at the same time…</p>

<p>@DrGoogle – Google is a search engine - it doesn’t vouch for the info on the sites it finds. The wmic command that is described will pull up the serial number, but not something that is tied to the Windows software (associated with Microsoft) – rather, it pulls up a number associated with the computer BIOS – something entirely different. But i is not what artloversplus saw, because he would not have seen the result displayed in the way he described. If you have an older system you can try both and see the difference in the display (it won’t hurt your computer to run those commands). </p>

76

<p>So many great responses! I’ve gotten this type of call, most recently just the other day. I ask the location of the caller. The past few times it’s been Jamestown, CA. While in the past I’ve pretended to play along for a while, then eventually tell them that what they are doing is illegal and hang up, my most recent tactic was to ask if the caller is a US citizen. (He said no.) I then asked for his green card number, and he got irate. I said you are asking for information from me, yet won’t provide information I request? He got very mad. </p>

77

<p>I’ve told my 85 year old mom, and I try to remember this myself; there are no legit callers who will ask you for personal information outright. Banks don’t do it, doctors don’t do it, police and fire don’t do it, computer companies and credit card companies don’t do it. There isn’t any reason I can think of to ever give out personal info over the phone to someone you didn’t call and you don’t know.
Also, the vast majority of callers unknown to us are trying to sell us something - or assure our vote. The most effective way to handle telemarketers and potential scammers is to hang up the phone as soon as they introduce themselves, if you don’t know them. Engaging will encourage them (and others in their group) to keep calling. </p>

78

<p>AS I said before in another thread, I have to answer all my calls as they might be business related. So, once in a blue moon, they caught me in my weak moments.</p>

79

<p>i have gotten maybe 10 email “orders to appear in court” in the last few weeks. I just need to open the attachment for details. Almost opened it… Seriously?</p>

<p>With sales calls, my office manager chants these words…“take me off the list”…works like magic. </p>

80

<p>

</p>

<p>did you mark them into spam?</p>