New scam alert

[Jeanied]

Sent round by our IT department today - thought other grapes would like to know about this:

Fake technical support virus phone scam.

There are bogus callers claiming to be from Microsoft or other organisations. They say that they've been referred by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or IT support deparment because there are problems with your computer.

They ask you to run a couple of diagnostic checks then they give you instructions to log on to a website. This gives them control of your PC.

The callers may know your name and even your address.

Please be on your guard and do not log onto the website. Don't even get in conversation with them - they have answers for everything!

[rustylady]

Thanks Jeanie. I am ultra-cautious when it comes to callers or e-mailers. Unless I have initiated the contact I tell them (very politely) to go forth and multiply.

[jackie j]

I wouldnt even know what they were on about and if I answer the phone to anyone I am not sure about I tell them that my OH deals with everything. When they ask what time will he be home I tell them I have no idea. Most of the time I dont answer. Email get deleted without looking.

[Topcat36]

Yes i remember reading about this a few weeks back only i dont think it was known to be a scam then , i cant rememebr who it was but someone i know (from FB) posted that they cant believe Microsoft are ringing you now to sort problems out, they made a comment about dont send error reports cos you'll get a phone call LOL. I dont think he/she got caught in the scam cos she told them to basically do one , lucky for her/him. I never am in when the phone rings anyway i always seem to be at work or away on holiday or i dont even exist sometimes

[BrokenOphelia]

Yes friends of mine where targeted by this. Luckily the person they chose to target is actually head of the Computer Science Department at the university here and so he knew it was bogus. Also if you have a caller number display on your mobile or house phone the numbers from the scam now actually show up as 'scam' because the phone companies are onto them now too.

[ginger ninger]

Thanks for the heads up Jeanie. I had a dodgy looking email last night in mi junk file so it got zapped, didn't even open it.

[OllieMartin]

Wow, an e-mail scam alert that isn't a scam alert itself!

So many of these are urban legends, or spam chain e-mails I tend to discount them straight away, but the fact that several grapes have heard of it happening I'm inclined to be aware...be very aware!

[kirsty b]

Bearing in mind I am having genuine puter probs at the mo its very likely I would have been taken in by that!

Thanks for the heads up Jeanie, will be cautious if I get any phone calls like that

[Jeanied]

We don't often get these kinds of warning from our IT department - so I figured when they put this one out, it was really genuine.

[matthew2riches]

Nothing new I'm afraid :-( A few of the scams we've re-created for TV include the same sort of thing with car insurance. Basically the scammer calls "the mark" and pretends to be from the underwriter (if they have the info), financial services authority (completely irrelevant btw!) or another governing organisation. Tells "the mark" a load of details and wants to confirm them and collect a few more... a lot of people won't bother checking the legitimacy of the call as they have heard all the true info about them and happily hand over more details to help the scammer clear out bank accounts, isas and cancel insurance policies, run up debts on credit cards, open accounts, buy online, etc, etc...

Another one is using wi-fi to gain access to someones computer in a public location... they basically setup a hotspot of their own and any information sent or received through that pipeline can be looked at in realtime... again - information used or stored for later use in another long con.

Really hard to believe but even genuine companies you buy your electrical goods, etc from where a warranty may be taken out are using this data collecting and harvesting to the extent where it could be classed as a scam by dictionary definition!

[Mrs Dobby]

Hmm, I had a phone call that sounds very like this recently, they wanted to sell me an online support package (got ur details cos of error reports), I checked what they were saying the errors were (on the puter, and they were there) but I wouldnt pay for anything like that and definitely would never allow another unknown person access to my puter over the net! Scarey!