The latest scammers show knowledge of customers’ phone numbers, PC serial numbers and their support history.

This was first reported in arstechnica back in January 2016, but it turns out, in Dell’s Forums in July 2015 there was a customer post about a similar incident of tech support calling with all the computer’s info and support history. When this customer pressed to know what was going on he got shut sown with

"Dell is aware of this and other complaints and is investigating," the employee wrote. "No, there will not be a public post/blog. We consider this closed from a Forum perspective." – arstechnica, ibid

Also, in August 2016 this appeared in their forums.

This breach is ongoing at Dell.

It’s important for you to know whether you own a Dell (or any other brand) that tech support won’t initiate contact with you by telephone if you just have a regular contract (warranty) with them. Neither will Banks nor the IRS.

However, if you have one of their premium services, like Dell Tech Concierge, Dell Premium Support or Dell ProSupport services, they can initiate calls with you. I’m not sure whether that is the case with other companies.

This is what I would suggest if you are contacted:

1) If you get a call, be polite but firm in rejecting whatever they’re offering/selling or advising the download of. Don’t argue. Note the number you’re being called from.

2) Look up the phone number of whichever company is calling you on that company’s official website and navigate by yourself to tech support or their fraud division. Call and report the instance no matter what they tell you about your computer’s numbers or support history.

Dell has finally acknowledged an ongoing fraud to arstechnica. They also published this on 10/2/15, on their website. They could have sent an email but that’s the kicker: Your support history anywhere has your email as well.

So…if support has to contact you, just how are they going to do it? Also, when will they find the spyware on their system?

I also wonder, is Dell the only company which has been compromised this way? Since the actual compromise is at this point unknown, theoretically any company with a support dep’t.

Yet another case of “timely notification” to customers.

Sources:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/latest-tech-support-scam-stokes-concerns-dell-customer-data-was-breached/

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2015/10/02/watch-out-for-tech-support-phone-scams

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/customercare/f/4674/p/19592122/20658023#20658023

http://www.idtheftcenter.org/Current-Scam-Alerts/dell-computer-service.html