Microsoft security update? New problem

wendym

I have just put the phone down on the 5th consecutive inaudible call 'from Microsoft technical dept'. The first three calls were from a woman who did not understand being asked to identify herself, offering free all-singing all-dancing security for my PC. A male colleague then took over, blaming her 'illness throat problems' for the poor quality line, then offering the same protection, this time for £69 (I think - the line was collapsing at this point).
It all seems iffy to me - does it ring bells with anyone? He did know that I had ticked 'error reporting' when Outlook didn't load about an hour ago, and blamed that on using free, not paid-for, virus and malware protection.

fwor

wendym wrote: »

He did know that I had ticked 'error reporting' when Outlook didn't load about an hour ago.

He almost certainly did not know that! He probably inferred that from something that you said.

It's a scam, and you should ignore it.

wendym

Thanks - I assumed a scam, but he definitely brought up the error reporting, as I was too suspicious to give anything away.

mr_fishbulb

Heard quite a few of these scams. Don't know who would fall for them, but some people must do.

Microsoft Security Providings

fwor

wendym wrote: »

he definitely brought up the error reporting

My guess is that they have a list of things like this which most Windows users will encounter regularly, and it was just coincidence that you had seen an error only a short while previously. AFAIK there is no way that these scammers can redirect MS error reports to themselves, so he must have been guessing.

Good to hear you weren't taken in - I'm sure if they started using people who could speak English properly they would con a lot more people...

mr_fishbulb

fwor wrote: »

My guess is that they have a list of things like this which most Windows users will encounter regularly, and it was just coincidence that you had seen an error only a short while previously. AFAIK there is no way that these scammers can redirect MS error reports to themselves, so he must have been guessing.

Even if they could, the error reports are anonymous. They couldn't get your phone number from it. Like you say, coincidence.

wendym

As the title now says:

After not falling for the phone scam, I decided to update Ad-Aware (it has been asking me to for a couple of weeks). I installed the update, couldn't open Outlook, switched everything off. When I tried to open Outlook later, I got 'Outlook experienced a serious problem the last time part of Ad-Aware was opened' (sorry didn't make a note of which bit it objected to).
Ran System restore, tried to open Outlook again, am now getting a serious problem message about an AVG add-in, and being asked if I want to disable the add-in.
I have access to email on the server direct - that and everything else is perfectly happy.
Apart from scammers in Mumbai sending a virus via my phone and across my desk, any thoughts please?

Edited to add: Googling Ad Aware problems suggest I'm not alone. Is there anything I ought to know about uninstalling it? Thanks.

fwor

Assuming that you are using AVG as your antivirus program, it includes a component that checks incoming and outgoing emails - and it sounds as though this part of AVG has stopped working properly (possibly because Ad-aware incorrectly thinks it is malware and has tried to quarantine it?).

In this situation, I would disable the AVG add-on within Outlook and then uninstall AVG, then re-install the latest version of AVG again.

Infidel

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wendym wrote: »

Edited to add: Googling Ad Aware problems suggest I'm not alone. Is there anything I ought to know about uninstalling it? Thanks.

I can't get rid of Ad-Aware and it keeps trying to update even though I thought I'd deleted it.

When I try via add/remove programs I get an error pop-up:

"Ad-Aware Installation Package has stopped working"