What advice for friend bitten by windows scam

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

I must admit that my first thought was .. some people shouldn't be allowed the internet .. then again, I've had 4 people in the last 6 months come to me with the same story, so she's not alone.

I do find it odd that people will give control of their PC to a total stranger that calls out of the blue .. would they do the same thing if a stranger knocked their door and asked for their car keys, saying they come from the company that sold them the car and it needs a service ?

I've come to service your Rolex Oyster Perpetual sir .. it needs winding

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[Emegra]

These scammers must get some measure of success or they wouldn't do it , maybe their victims deserve it or maybe they don't, personally I don't think I have a right to judge.

To be honest i would rather not be involved in this but she's asked me to help her so what do I do.

She'll go along with whatever I suggest (poor misguided woman) so I'll do the best I can, hopefully we may end up with one more satisfied Linux user, who knows

Anyway thank's for all the helpful advice it's much appreciated



Graeme

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

I'm not suggesting they deserve it (nobody does .. okay, maybe it would be funny if it happened to Steve Ballmer) .. just that these days I find it hard to believe some people can still be that trusting/naive.

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[Emegra]

I'm not suggesting they deserve it (nobody does) .. just that these days I find it hard to believe some people can be that naive.

I know, the strange thing is she's not naive by nature, and she wasn't so much angry at the scammers as herself for allowing it to happen, ironically these same scammers called her about a month ago and she told them to P@@s off, so explain that if you can

But naive or or not she's done it now and it looks like i have to find a solution


Many thanks



Graeme

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

I'd say Windows or Mint 13, as Mint 13 is an LTS with 4 years to go.

[EDIT]

Or Ubuntu 12.04 .. preferably with the LXDE desktop and a red and white striped sweet as the logo.

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[Emegra]

One last thing

Am I right to suggest a complete re-installation, I mean I'm not over-reacting and is that what you would suggest ?




Graeme

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Well in all the cases I saw, all they'd apparently done was installed teamviwerQS and had them run it .. no other malware was present, so it would seem it was more about data theft.

That said, without getting a looksee at the PC, a total wipe is the only 100% safe option

If she needs to recover any data first .. do it offline, just in case.

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[Emegra]

Or Ubuntu 12.04 .. preferably with the LXDE desktop and a red and white striped sweet as the logo.

Now where have i seen that before

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

[Mad Penguin]

It's a code 18 error ... no known fix for these ... short of someone inventing Skynet ...

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[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

I fought it, but I've gotta ask .. code 18 ?

[EDIT]

I found this:
http://www.code18.ca/code18/demo.html

and an ISDN cause/error code 18 - user not responding

also a reference to a Windows USB HID (human interface device) error code 18

But where does your reference come from ?

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[Mad Penguin]

Your memory is going - I've told you this one before .. . Check it out on netlingo.com ..

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Ahh .. so you have 

My memory, like my enthusiasm for getting up in the morning (and occasionally my will to live), sometimes needs a little prod.

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[Mad Penguin]

What is this 'morning' thing you speak of ...

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[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Now I know I'm not the only one with long term memory issues, I feel inexplicably relieved