Hi, does anyone know anything about this? It’s very curious to me.
One example out of many:
This is a Japanese-language popup scam on a U.S. number (0101 is just an international dialing prefix). I have called and verified these scams, they pick up and answer as “Microsoft” or whatever in Japanese.
But what is the market for them? Who is going to call an international non-toll-free line ($$$) for tech support from Japan? It just makes no sense to me. Is there something here that I don’t understand?
Yes, but why would anyone in Japan dial an international number for tech support? Is international dialing cheap in Japan? My normal cell phone plan here in the U.S. doesn’t even let me dial international.
Hi, usually Victims of the popup scam are computer illiterate, this scam would most likely effect the elderly who are very unlikely to know dial codes or that Microsoft don’t do Popups.
regarding point 2 this is speculation on my end but I’ve come to a solid conclusion, my thinking on this is its very hard for scammers to obtain overseas numbers and reporting the number would cause them to loose the account, they use carriers over here like 800TFN who don’t take numbers down, causing the number to stay up for longer.
I meant that elderly people are unlikely to know they are calling an American number and also with the combined panic of having their computer locked .
With landline phones they will bill for any call done international or not.
I guess maybe? But in my experience elderly people are more aware of phone-bill related things than the youngsters. Remember, when we were your age “long distance” dialing cost more than “local,” and we knew the difference! It just seems improbable to me, like there’s some other factor we’re not getting.
