I'm pleased that the scammers have been walloped, but what about the true victims of their fraud, the "customers"? Will they get any form of compensation too?
Microsoft settles £200,000+ claims against tech support scammers who ran global ripoff from cottage in Surrey
A multinational tech support scam was operated out of a rural Surrey cottage for years before its Indian call centre was rumbled and gave the game away to Microsoft, the High Court has heard. Redmond has settled a £200,000+ claim against Barewire Ltd and its directors, Neil Purnell and Toni Whittingham, after accusing them of …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 11th March 2021 10:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Contumelious, Dr. Johnson?
Or
"Yes M'Lord, I am guilty and I am really, genuinely sorry. I will pay back any ill-gotten gains, and also an additional sum to recompense those affected by my criminal behaviour"
I bet those words have actually never been used in any court case anywhere in the world....
However, I bet the most used words will include "I am not guilty, it was the other guy wot done it".
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Wednesday 10th March 2021 21:59 GMT Shadow Systems
Re: MS is just jealous...
Foamy the Angry Squirrel has a regular running joke that *all* tech support gets outsourced to a call center in India, consolodated, until it's all just a single man doing it for everyone everywhere.
If you want to lose a day or two laughing yourself sick, go visit Youtube & visit the Ill Will Press channel. You're welcome. =-D
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Wednesday 10th March 2021 14:18 GMT Peter2
Re: And prosecution?
Because Microsoft can sue them for trademark infringement itself in a civil action.
Criminal action would require the Police to build a file, and for the Crown Prosecution Service to decide that it is in the public interest to prosecute and then take them to court because the politicians only gave the CPS the ability to prosecute.
Allegedly, the Police tend to think the CPS stands for "Couldn't Prosecute Satan", which indicates that there might be a certain difficulty with getting the CPS to prosecute.
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Wednesday 10th March 2021 16:40 GMT cyberdemon
Re: And prosecution?
I came to the comments section to say the same. Why the @@@@ is this not a criminal matter?
So, have Microsoft at least passed their file to the police?
Presumably by the time the courts order compensation to the actual victims, this lot will have no money left, having just paid it to Microsoft (and squirrelled the rest of it away in the bahamas)
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Wednesday 10th March 2021 17:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: And prosecution?
And the Daily Mail calls the CPS the Criminal Protection Service.
I am so sick of these knee-jerk whinges against the CPS.
A member of my family is a retired Crown Prosecutor (which is why I'm posting anon). They are NOT a bunch of charlatans or lazy, incompetent so-and-so's. They are trying their best, with their hands tied by ridiculous government cutbacks, to do a good job. They have guidelines to follow, and they are not going to waste public money by trying to prosecute a case which does not stand a realistic chance of conviction.
And most of the time, despite what people say, the police and the CPS work well together. You do sometimes get situations where the police want to prosecute someone and the CPS says no - but that's normally because "I know it was him what done it" isn't actually sufficient to find someone guilty to the criminal standard.
Which is not to say I don't agree with the main point - it feels to me as if there is quite a clear criminal case here. But if the case hasn't been reported to the police, or the police haven't managed to build a file to be considered by the CPS, then the CPS can't really be blamed for not prosecuting it, now can they?
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Wednesday 10th March 2021 17:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: And prosecution?
Allegedly, the Police tend to think the CPS stands for "Couldn't Prosecute Satan", which indicates that there might be a certain difficulty with getting the CPS to prosecute
Personal experience leads me to agree with them.
Several years ago I came back from holiday to find my first floor flat had been burgled - someone had got in through the juliet bacony windows at the front of the building. Police forensics arrive and take finger prints, which I was told a few days later matched those of the dodgy guy living in the flat across the communal stairs from me. He is arrested and charged, as his prints were found under my bed in the bedroom, and it is possible to climb from his juliet balcony to mine.
However, because he had once legitimately been in my living room 6 months previously, for 2 minutes, with me present, to use my phone to call an ambulance, the CPS decide in their great wisdom that because there is an ever so slight chance that a jury would find him innocent, they drop all charges and he gets away scot free...
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Thursday 11th March 2021 10:44 GMT Mooseman
Re: And prosecution?
"CPS decide in their great wisdom that because there is an ever so slight chance that a jury would find him innocent, they drop all charges and he gets away scot free"
Because they are used to the vagaries and whims of the British court system, perhaps? The chances are a decent lawyer would present that as evidence of the burglar's innocence, or at least be able to present it as grounds for reasonable doubt. Juries are notoriously fickle and easily browbeaten. The CPS is not in the business of gambling, it wants cases that have a good chance of success, as the law is a very expensive business.
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Thursday 11th March 2021 09:10 GMT James Wilson
Re: This Morning
Mine are mostly either from Amazon or an ISP these days. I always press 1. I think the best I've managed is about 25 minutes before they realised I'm not actually following their instructions and installing a remote desktop program. Some take it gracefully, others get a bit sweary.
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Wednesday 10th March 2021 14:42 GMT Version 1.0
"sham technical support services"
I've had these calls too but, while they are "sham technical support services", they sound exactly like Microsoft's sham technical support services. I've spent months now trying to get OneDrive to install on a laptop and it keeps saying the installer is corrupted (even though the same image worked fine on another laptop) so I can see why people will fall for scammers like this - they simply finally appear to be an improvement of the standard Microsoft support.
Yes, Microsoft, they are scammers - but when you look at what Microsoft offers as support you can see why people fall for this.
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Wednesday 10th March 2021 15:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
mobile phone
"A mobile phone number which Microsoft alleged in its pleadings belonged to Purnell went to voicemail when El Reg called; no response has yet been received."
PLEASE share with me that phone number so I can give it to my parents that receive calls from "Microsoft" every half hour of every day.
(and sometimes more frequently) so that they can call him repeatedly to see how he likes it.
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Wednesday 10th March 2021 15:41 GMT Steve Kerr
Damn annoying
I'm always working or in meetings/conference calls when these come through.
I've not managed to get a slot where I can make someones life in another country just that litle bit worse.
had a flurry of them today but being on a 4 hour customer call, couldn't answer any.
Always tomorrow.