Is it a scam?

BUXTONRABBIT

I was called today by someone purporting to work for Microsoft. He said that I had a fault with my computer that I had reported (I never do) that would slow my computer right down. He gave me the fault, which I can't remember lots of letters and numbers and asked if I was sitting in front of my computer.
He had my name and tel number. How?
It seemed as if it might be a scam to me. What do you think.
I told him I had just got in from work and to phone later, which he said he would. Any views please.

Fifer

It's a scam. He'll ask you to download some software to allow him to fix the 'problem', which will in fact give hime remote control of your computer.

AndyCam_2

Definitely a scam. Your name and number have been acquired very easily, in the same way that marketing/telesales firms get lists of numbers.

lily89

yea its a scam, if they try again ask for their details and send them stright to microsoft UK

i got a call a month and a bit ago from a indian gentleman who was going on about helping me fix by PC online and told him stright away that i am hanging up

hethmar

Its strange how this one has come up again a lot today. Several forums Im on has people saying they had the calls again. They change the chat a bit but the gist is your puter has sent back messages to microsoft (without your knowledge) telling them it is infested with viruses and worms. They are coming to your rescue and you just have to do everything they say on your puter which will basically give them remote control of it. Your computer is then open to anything they care to do. Though usually they seem to tell you there is 100 viruses or something and they can clear it for a couple of hundred quid. But obviously the more frightening thing is that they can sit in India or wherever (they always call themselves Bob or Mike or an english name yet can barely speak the language) and just scan all your system. Dreadful.

There were some brilliant threads on here a couple of months back how to handle the call and hang the caller out for an hour or more, LOL.

If he rings later either tell him you are just putting the phone down whilst you follow his instructions (and then leave it for as long as possible clocking up their phone bill) or say your OH is a police officer and would like a word with him. BUT do not let them take over your puter.

pineapple

Total scam I'm afraid.

thefireworksguy

I got a call similar to that a couple of weeks ago. I went along with it for a while to see what he'd say, when it got to the point where he asked me to go to a web address is when I just gave it up, though it was funny listening to him thinking I believed what he was saying

jayme1

yep definately a scam, even if you send microsoft the error reports it specifically says that they 'will not use them to identify or try to contact you'

another scare story on what they can do when they take over your computer is they encrypt all your files and charge you (upto) thousands to release them.

BUXTONRABBIT

Thanks everyone just as I thought. I wont bother listening to him if he rings back. My worry was also that he would remote control my computer.

MrMuttley

I work in Tech support and i received a call from these types of scammmers. I just talked like i was doing all the things that wind me up from customers when i speak to them. Typing stuff in the search bar not being able to tell the difference between the left and right mouse buttons commas instead of dots in web addresses etc. 5 mins later "Does it matter that i'm not connected to the internet for this web address " "Oh let me turn the internet box thing on"

I wasn't even in front of my computer at the time.

Knarf44

About time we had a sticky at the top of this thread to avoid all these repeat posts about this scam.

There again, judging by the number of malware related threads that appear asking for advice that's contained in that sticky I guess nobody really reads the stickies anyway.