Apple’s customer service is tops. Go into any Apple Store, and a Genius will be happy to assist you with even the most trivial of technical support problems.
I bet the guy on the other end of a call from an alleged Microsoft tech support guru wished he was talking to an Apple Genius instead. The “support” guy turned out to be a scammer, and when the victim called him out on it, the fake Microsoft agent actually threatened to murder him.
The fraudster called Canadian Jakob Dulisse, offering support for nonexistent computer problems he said Dulisse was having. That’s a common scam, incidentally: Companies don’t cold call you when they just think you’re having tech support issues.
When Dulisse busted him on the scam, things got ugly. The scammer asked Dulisse if he “knew what we do to Anglo people” and then said that they “cut them up in little pieces and throw them in the river.”
Whoa! But it got even nastier. When Dulisse refused to back down or grant the scammer access to his computer, the scammer claimed he had Dulisse’s home address and would send someone to murder him if he didn’t comply.
Again, whoa!
Don’t believe me? Listen for yourself.
Needless to say, if someone calls you claiming to be from Microsoft, Facebook or even Apple, then asks you to give them access to your personal information, you should just hang up. These companies all have more secure and official channels to get in contact with you if they need to, which will let you authenticate the caller’s details before giving them your personal info.
As for this scammer? All I can say is, what a total dick. Not even Microsoft’s as evil as this guy.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
3 responses to “‘Microsoft tech support’ scammer threatens murder in Canada”
I had a technologically inept friend fall for this a while ago forcing me to wipe her machine. They charged her card dozens of times, and when she cancelled her card they called several times to threaten her. I was there when they called one of the times and they tried to make it sound like she was in the wrong for canceling her card.
These guys have serious balls.
Makes you wish for the ability to just send a nice 50,000 volt surprise through the line at these POS’s. Scumbags without fear of repercussion because they are not in north America. It’s not like India is going to do anything about it so long as there’s a profit no matter how despicible the source. I say we just cancel EVERYTHING INVOLVING PHONE SUPPORT IN INDIA.
Sorry but I prefer my tech support to speak English and actually know what they are talking about. I don’t speak to foreign tech support anyway. If I need something and I know the company uses offshore support I call their offices directly and tell them I will not speak with a foreigner and will only deal with in country staff. Surprisingly, it works very well.
I strung one of these guys along for 20 minutes just to see what it was all about. Pretended to not know anything about computers and had him go over and explain everything several times like I was an idiot, you could hear the glee in his voice at finding a sucker. After I had enough fun, I laughingly called him out on it. He became furious and told me to go F my sister.
Good times..