MS Windows Support scam . . . .

He called my 85 year old Mother one time. She let him run through his entire spiel, then calmly said "That's funny. I don't even own a computer." He hung up on her.

If you reach a point where you have authorized a charge before you figure out this is a scam, call your credit card company immediately, tell them you fell for a scam and have them cancel the transaction.

These guys are just great fun to mess with. I am a very old hand at computers. One called and tried to tell me that my computer had a virus. He knew because he could see it. He said he was looking at a machine and gave the windows internal IP address.

Well, my primary is behind two firewalls and it is not an MS OS. My internal addresses are all IP6. So, I thought I would drag him along until he got bored. I had a great time. I wish I knew what really happened as he was steadily getting more frustrated and then the line dropped. He didn't call back.

Matt

If I'm bored, I play along with them, and then listen to them get frustrated when what I tell them what I'm seeing on my screen is not what they expected. Of course I don't tell them I never typed in what they told me to... :B

I received the same a few weeks back. I played along with them though.. The one I received basically told me that they were MS Support and that they received something that said I was having issues with my computer. They asked if I was sitting in front of my computer. But never asked if I had multiple computers, or if I was having problems on this particular computer. Since this is my field, knew it was a scam, and knew when to stop, I went along with it to see what they wanted. They said to hit the windows key and R, which I knew opened the run dialog. Then they wanted me to type in a URL.. that's where I stopped. So in my case, they were trying to get me to go to a site that was either infected, or they were going to try a phishing scam on me..

Like the others.. If Microsoft, or any other company calls you out of the blue, it likely isn't real. They need to have some way to verify they are who they say they are, or hang up.

This scam is very prevalent right now, mainly, because people fall for it. We have also seen this in pop-ups with a phone number to call. Be very leery of anyone ever calling you or any pop-up message.

Do not ever click on a pop-up related to anti-virus.

Do not ever give any personal info to anyone over the phone or in email.

Just my $.02

I'm afraid they called me when I was not in the mood, and I cursed at the guy, prompting him to warn me to watch my language.

I'm afraid I did not.

I hate those calls and I get them often. Like MS has people sitting around monitoring my laptop, or computer. As if I am going to log onto something for them so they can get into my system. I keep repeating Scammer scammer scammer into the phone when I am in a mood to play with them. Or I say really I am the head of MS security, and I don't remember sending out any warning or even having a department that does what you are saying. They hang up then. My husband talks in a foreign language back to them, believe me there is no language out there that is even close to what he is speaking...lol. Kind of like the duck cleaner calls, I keep telling them I have electric baseboards. They keep calling.

Tell them you don't own computer and they won't give you time to hang out because they do it for you. Might I add very quickly ...lol!

happened to me yesterday they said I'd been hacked Was I on computer etc etc. I hung up