The tactics are the same but scammers have updated their strategies. I just received a rather suspicious telephone call that would have been very convincing to someone with a little less IT awareness.
The caller stated that they were calling from an IT Solutions company in London as a certified representative of Microsoft. The theme of the call was that my computer was reporting error messages on a daily basis to Microsoft, that this was a courtesy customer phone call, that he was going to talk me through the error messages and show me how to fix them before the errors stopped my operating system from working.
Would you have heard the warning bells by now?
So, what information did the guy have about me? He had a phone number and a name and he could tell me that I was using Windows on my PC. When pressed, he could not tell me what operating system I was using or any other personal information concerning my computer, apparently because the Data Protection Act would not let him disclose that to me.
Hmmmmm....are we feeling suspicious yet?
He had quite a convincing spiel and you could tell that he was sticking to the script that he had in front of him, with no deviation and no engagement in the conversation. He starts to get aggressive about how MS Windows is going to shut my PC down if I don't listen to him and let him prove to me that there are errors on my computer...even questioning my technical ability! Oh yes, and apparently it would not matter which computer I was on or that I am not the designated person that he was supposed to be calling...because we are all using the same home internet connection and the errors are definitely coming from my computer!
So, ok, what does he want me to do, click Start, go to Run, My Computer, Computer Management, Event Viewer...and here we are looking at a list of daily error messages. Well, yes, of course there are error messages, hundreds of them, I am using Microsoft Windows, this is normal, every little glitch does get logged and listed here. What is his point?
At this point, my lack of cooperation and questioning his legitimacy as a caller prompts him to 'pass me to his supervisor'. Standard call centre practice, yes, but in this case, a second opinion to see if I am worth pressing further. The 'supervisor' is bright and cheerful and starts with 'let's start from the beginning' to which I say 'oh no, not again', to which he states 'oh and can you tell me what happened' and I reply 'I was getting frustrated with your colleague...' Click...bzzzzzzzzzzzzz...and suddenly I am no longer speaking to anyone.
Yes, I'm pretty sure that was a scam, but just to prove it to myself, I logged in to Microsoft Support and had a live online chat with a very nice man called Matthew, who confirmed that Microsoft does not make cold calls to residential customers. Well, that was a surprise wasn't it!
Had I taken this call seriously at any point, the scammer would no doubt have asked my for personally identifiable data, login information, passwords and likely asked me to download software onto my computer. The risks of any of these actions would have compromised my computer, security and lead me to being hacked, phished and probably been the target of identity theft and fraud. More information on avoiding phone scams is available on the
Microsoft Security website.
On the plus side, the call did remind me to run my software updates and connect my external hard drive for a fresh back-up. So, I'm hoping that by writing this post I will at least remind someone else to do likewise!
