Today I received a call from a California number – 510-962-4562. The caller said he was from the “Windows Support Team” and that my computer was sending them messages saying that my computer was downloading trojans that would cause my computer harm. I played along feeling that this was a scam. He said that each computer with Windows on it has a unique ID number. He said to prove that they have my computer’s number – which was: 00c04fd7d062. He had me hold down the Windows key and press the R key. (The Run window) He then had me type CMD and press Enter. This starts a command prompt window. He then said to type assoc and enter. After the many lines stopped, he wanted me to verify that the line starting with .zfsendtotarget ended in my “unique” id – which it did. But so did the one on my laptop. When I asked him why the numbers were the same on both computers, he said that it was because they are on the same internet connection.
At this point, I was tired of playing the game so I told him that I thought this was a scam at which point he still tried to convince me that he was a legimite help desk person. When I didn’t buy his line, he hung up. He had a strong Indian (as from India) accent although his English was better than most actual Help Desk people I have talked to.
This is a scam in which they want to connect into your computer, accessing your personal files and data and ultimately cost you time and money. Please don’t fall for it. The links below relate similar scam calls. The CLSID is probably the same on most if not all Windows computers, so obviously not unique. From what I saw on those links, this has been going on for some time and from many different states, although always with an Indian (as from India) accent.
Mike
California Phone Number 510-962-4562
CLSID 00c04fd7d062 – supposedly unique computer ID
line from the command line window:
.zfsendtotarget=CLSID\888DCA60-FC0A-11CF-8F0F-00C04FD7D062
links from other sites with additional information:
http://www.welivesecurity.com/2011/07/19/support-desk-scams-clsid-not-unique/
http://blog.eset.com/2011/07/19/support-desk-scams-clsid-not-unique
http://www.tangomanfromqc.com/node/61
