Scam
 

I have just had a telephone call that was allegedly from Microsoft. I answered in Spanish, she was thrown for a second then she spoke in English (really difficult to understand her due to her heavy Indian accent). She said that she was from Microsoft and that she was concerned about my computer, I asked why and she said something totally unintelligible so I closed the call. My phone rang again but I did not answer. My assumption is that this is yet another scam so thought that I would mention it on here to inform people.

Rosemary

Re: Scam
 

Whenever I get a dodgy phone call I inform them that they should speak to my farther and if they hang on I will go and get him.
Then I put the phone down and leave it for 15 minutes or so hopefully wasting a fair chunk of their time which is the only commodity they have.

Re: Scam
 

I had a several similar calls from "Microsoft" when we still lived in the UK. They usually try to frighten you by saying they have detected that you have some viruses on your computer and try to sell you some antivirus software. Always a scam but some people obviously pay!

Re: Scam
 

Worse still , some suggest that they have remote access to your computer to 'fix' things, needless to say, don't do it. Just put them off by saying yours is a Mac.

Re: Scam
 

I always reply when i get a call with indian accent here...yes please and 2 poppams with chuckney..never last more than 3 secs

Re: Scam
 

This....never allow anyone have remote access to your computer, they could steal all your passwords, banking details etc.....pull the plug out quickly.

Re: Scam
 

Had a male today, when he started to speak I asked him to wait a minute (in Spanish because he spoke in English) and then I left the phone on a chair whilst I continued with what I was doing when he called. After about 3 minutes I picked up the phone but he had gone. The phone rang 4 times after that so I did not bother to answer. So disruptive.

Rosemary

Re: Scam
 

I once put my 3 year old grandaughter on the phone to one of these cold-callers,it was hilarious because he kept asking for her daddy and she kept saying are you my daddy. He was the one to hang up-eventually and in a very bad mood.

Re: Scam
 

Love that. Pity that my call had not come earlier when I had a house full of Spanish children. Probably would not have heard the phone ring so would not have been able to use your trick.

Rosemary

Re: Scam
 

Had an email.'re your invoice for ( I can't remember the company) £49.00, should you wish to cancel this, please go to our cancellation page.
Purporting to come from PayPal.
It all looks cosher until common sense kicks in.
As for the Crown Jewels of Nigeria....

Re: Scam
 

Last year in the UK I was caught by a TalkTalk scam.
It actually seemed legit at the time. Goes something like this...

New broadband install, but had a problem with the wiring to the house.

BT (Openreach) engineer came and fixed it. He ran tests on the router and noted that some failed (broadband was however working ok). It looked like he passed this info back to TalkTalk remotely (via his tablet) - an important point I think.

Later that day, had phone call from TalkTalk (they said) to 'investigate my faulty router'. I'm ashamed to say that I was not suspicious at this stage because of the earlier BT visit.

Yes, I allowed access to my PC!!! but became alarmed when I saw some weird messages on the screen. I then shut my PC down and hung up.

When I went to use my PC a few hours later, I was locked out and saw a ransom message.

Fortunately I had backed up my data a few days previous (Win 10 upgrade), so I simply did a clean re-install of Windows.

A coincidence? Data compromise by BT? Data compromise by TalkTalk? or a crooked BT Engineer (unlikely I think).

Re: Scam
 

You like to think the best of others clearly. BT staff have less than a clean bill of health when it come to honesty, much like many a large institution.

Re: Scam
 

I love winding them up. I work in IT, we once let these jokers into a test machine but blocked their ability to save any files on it, they kept trying stuff for about half an hour. We eventually removed the restriction, they downloaded their virus, but firstly it was a mac that didnt run their junk, and 2nd macafee anti virus saw and blocked our attempt to run it. The moment when we told them it was a mac after 30 mins got a stifled eureka moment from them, we really tried to help them but the force of their tech was weak...

Re: Scam
 

Had a male today,

That's interesting!

Re: Scam
 

I used to ask them what my IP address was. If they can see I had problems then they must have my IP address in order to see my PC . CLICK! Did once, when a bit bored, egg them on. Asked for their email address to send them a password to get into my computer remotely,(not allowed to give it out!!) could not find the windows error log they referred to,how could a virus get past my antivirus program etc. After about 40 minutes asked if the fact that I had a Mac made a difference. CLICK! But I had enjoyed myself at their expense!My friend, who is a microsoft certified engineeer once kept one of them going for over an hour.