Thousands of Australians have been taken for hundreds of dollars each by cold call scammers pretending to be Microsoft but police, regulators and the software company are powerless to fight the growing problem.
The scammers, typically based in Indian call centres, cold call people claiming to be Microsoft staff informing them that their computer has a virus on it. They provide bogus evidence of a virus infection and after winning over the victim, convince them to allow the scammer remote access to their computer through an internet website.
The scammers then pretend to fix the machine and ask for a fee that is up to $400. They use a combination of high pressure sales tactics and social engineering to scare the victim into paying the fee and because victims willingly hand over their credit card details, there is little legal recourse.
But the head of the NSW Police fraud squad, Detective Superintendent Col Dyson, said in a phone interview that in addition to taking payment the scammers also stole money and planted viruses on the victims' computers.
"We've had quite a few people report this to us and it's increasing all the time ... you're basically opening the door to your bank accounts to a criminal," he said.
"We have strong indications that they're looking at activity logs so they can pick up things like passwords and bank account details; some people's computers have also been infected with viruses and keyloggers.
The easiest way to get rid of them was to tell them that you do not have a computer.
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