
Trolling a Windows support scammer - happy-go-lucky
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/take-your-sweet-time-how-i-scammed-a-tech-support-scammer-for-nearly-two-hours/
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ChrisBland
I too try to ruin this business model by keeping them on the phone and wasting
as much of their time as possible. One time I may or may not have been able to
convince one of them to download a remote toolkit under the guise of sending
him my 'banking and computer folder' to sort out the issue so I didn't 'go to
jail'. I then may or may not have had fun bouncing around their network,
opening CD drives, playing sounds, really brought me back to 8th grade
hacking. I also may or may not have nuked their computers on my way out.

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kelvin0
I wish I had (may or may not have) done it myself!

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AdmiralAsshat
Trolling tech support scammers is a popular past-time on Reddit, particularly
for users of Lenny, a robot that simulates a confused old man who meanders and
segues into non-sequitur stories.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/](https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/)

This one is easily one of my favorites:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CsEuJNSnh8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CsEuJNSnh8)

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nkrisc
I lost it at the ducks.

So it's autonomous or is it more like a soundboard?

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kalleboo
It's an asterisk (VoIP server) script that rotates through a handful of sound
files. It starts playing a new one as soon as the other end of the call is
silent for a set amount of time.

Anyone who gets a spam call can just forward it to 1-347-514-7296 or
sip:13475147296@in.callcentric.com (see the reddit link above for more info)

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Nexxxeh
2 hours? Amateur!

A combination of VirtualBox, Twilio, a VPN and an old i5 laptop allows for far
longer scammer frustration.

Simply give them remote access (after hiding the VirtualBox tools) then turn
down the core count, memory allocation and cap execution to 10%.

Have the VM connected to the VPN at the Host end to give it Internet access
without exposing your own network.

Randomly disconnect the VPN for extra hilarity.

~~~
new299
Yep, if I've nothing to do I just keep them talking. In my experience they
almost never give up. I think they're told to keep talking until you hang up.

I've had them talking for about 30mins after I've called them out on the scam
and just bluntly asked how it worked.

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noxToken
Did they tell you anything?

After I get tired, I usually start making snide remarks to get under their
skin. They get _so angry_ when you make remarks about their mother.

 _I can 't believe she raised a low-life scammer. She must have been a
terrible mother._

Seriously. Don't insult the scammer. They'll just hang up. Go for family, and
all of sudden, this sense of honor spews forth to defend. The exasperated
sighs from helping your willfully obtuse methods stop, and the angry shouting
begins.

Schoolyard insults with a scammer is a good time-waster.

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kelvin0
Yup, been there done that too ... just could not resist. I stalled for 1/2
hours and finally I feigned acceptance to give them access to my PC to 'fix'
it. At the last moment I asked the scammer if he could put me in contact with
law enforcement so they could give me some assurance this was not a scam.
Without skipping a beat, the scammer on the phone tells me "OK. Hold I will
connect you to chief of police...", then not even changing his voice he start
off again " Yes, hello chief of police here, all is good these are not
scammers..." and then hangs up!

You can't make that stuff up, I laughed my head off. Good times.

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rhapsodic
I did this once, but I didn't want to continually talk to the guy to keep him
on the phone. So when he told me to "turn my computer on", while it was
supposedly booting, I said, "now it says, 'Installing Windows Updates, 14%,
please don't turn off your computer'." And I kept giving him updates about
every three minutes, "now it says 18%, gee it's really moving slow..." All
told, I burned about 15 minutes on just the bootup. Then I told him, "hold on,
there's someone at my front door, I'll see what they want and I'll be right
back." I kept him on a muted speaker phone while I continued working. Every
few minutes he would say "sir, are you there?" and eventually he gave up and
hung up. The total time of the call was about 28 minutes, which is much much
less than this guy's 2 hours, but it consumed very few brain cycles on my
part. We never even got to the part where he was telling me what to do on my
PC.

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cr0sh
My favorite "nuke" of one of these scammers involved a guy who basically did
the same thing, but set his VM up with a virus-ladened system image. The
scammer of course got the virus, and it b0rked their system post-haste. They
were not happy, according to the transcript. Oh well.

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AdmiralAsshat
A virus can infect someone remotely viewing a system through TeamViewer?

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cr0sh
I'm not sure what remote software they were using, but I do know they had
spiked the filesystem with files the perps were downloading remotely (named in
such a manner to make them seem like worthwhile targets). This was just
something I read, so it may not be worth the electrons it was presented
with...

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allendoerfer
What I learned from this is, that criminals using your tool can be an asset
(free press) or a liability ("X did not respond"). Depending on some simple
actions, you can be seen as either a crime fighter or partner in crime.

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debacle
I did this once. Wound up being put on a list after the first time, and it
seemed like they would give every new guy to me to call.

After the last time, I actually got started talking to the guy about their
software and business model and stuff. He seemed really proud of their
software, saying that it was probably better than most commercial AVs out
there, but that they make the calls that they do simply as part of their
business model. I gave him a few pointers on how to show someone they had
actually been hacked, and sent him on his way.

Haven't gotten a call back since.

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threepipeproblm
I have found the best thing to say is, "You need to stop doing crimes, so you
can respect yourself again." Sometimes I have to say it twice to get a
reaction. I have had people break down and cry, scream at me, etc.

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ytugiuyghvk
What a waste of time.

