AMMYY Scam

I was just called (09.27, UK, 6th. of July, 2015) by someone called "Cedric" from 'Justdialtech' (he wasn't sure if it was spelled with a c or a k!) saying he was a network protection agent supporting windows and someone had hacked my 'network'. As I had just had my email account and my credit card hacked over the week-end (perhaps by him or his friends ?) I listened, otherwise I would not have given him the time of day. He wanted me to download ammyy. I typed www.ammyy.com into my Windows box (unfortunately) and looked at it but I was suspicious and refused to download when prompted. He said he was calling from West Drayton but his accent was not Anglo-Indian, it was Indian. I asked him to call back once I had had time to check him out. I called BT, out telephone company. It seems ammyy really is scareware and BT are now cleaning up my computer for me. I am surprised that Microsoft and the authorities have not done the necessary to clear this up since I see the incidents reported below are two years old.

I've just had such a call. Had me run various benign commands to build a back story, convince me I had a problem because of a ZFSendToTarget extension value, something they know users will have.  He tried to convince me that this was my MS Windows License value.  He then wanted me to go to www.ammyy.com and download something, I suspect a remote control agent.  I've worked in IT for ~ 30 years, knew the scamming antics of these people goes on, that they "call during the day hoping to catch the wives in, while the husband is at work" (My wife's own words).   I get a lot of calls from "Microsoft Department" and the likes and normally hang up immediately. This time, after taking up 17 minutes of HIS time I told him I was an IT person and he could go <Removed> himself.  I've seen one person managed to string them along for 40+ minutes. Would love to have kept him busy that long but I have a job to do..