I
received an odd telephone call this morning. The caller with an Indian voice,
who claimed to be from the “Technical Department of Windows”, tried to tell me
that I had down loaded some malware from the internet on to my computer. When I
asked how she knew this, the caller became confused, and as the line was poor I
took the opportunity to hang up. Ten seconds later the phone rang again, the
same caller again apologising for having been cut off and once again telling me
that there was a problem with my computer. So for a second time I asked how she
knew, again she became confused, but this time handed me on to a male colleague
who ignored my question and got on with the script. He asked me if I could see
my computer, which I said I could, next he asked if I could see the “My
Computer” icon. At this point I consider playing along to see where this was
going, but two things stopped me, first I wasn’t going to able to follow his
instructions (as I am using Ubuntu Linux, not MS Windows), and two I had better
things to do with my day. Therefore I hung up once again and have had no
further calls. I tried ringing 1471 but as they were phoning from abroad the
number was unavailable so I had nothing to report to Consumer Direct’s
“Report a Scam” service.
This
afternoon I found myself still thinking about the call, I was intrigued to know
how common this sort of thing is, so I did a quick Google search and I found
there is plenty hits showing that this is a regular problem. Obviously, Microsoft
support number would never make such a phone call, you have to phone them to
get support not the other way around. Either way, their advice on dealing
with scams is pretty thin. The best advice dealing with these scams comes
from the Digital Toast blog, which also has an entertaining collection of
videos of people winding up the scammers. Also, the Guardian technology editor,
Charles Arthur, makes some interesting comments about who might be
behind these scams. If you have received a call recently, maybe you would like
to leave a comment.
Update
In the years since this post was originally written this scam has changed to include the “Technical Department of BT” and “Virgin Media Technical Department”. The simple fact is that no “Technical Department” cold calls customers to tell them that their computers are in some way infected with a virus. These calls are scams, please don’t fall for them.
In the years since this post was originally written this scam has changed to include the “Technical Department of BT” and “Virgin Media Technical Department”. The simple fact is that no “Technical Department” cold calls customers to tell them that their computers are in some way infected with a virus. These calls are scams, please don’t fall for them.
Oh
and just is case you were wondering if Microsoft support number knows about
this scam, well yes they were told about it in March 2010, it is just that
they can’t be bothered to do anything about it…
TAGS: #MicrosoftSupportNumber
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