The Grand Wazoo
16-05-2011, 14:18
I don't know if anyone here has had this tried on them, but it's the second time it's happened to me in the last two or three weeks.
I got a call from a guy telling me that he works for Microsoft at Windows support & that my PC is sending them loads of error reports (not true, because I always opt not to when the PC does a burp) anyway, he'll talk me through how to sort this problem out.
I asked him how he got my phone number & he said it was on the documentation from when I bought my PC - interesting, as when I bought the PC, I didn't know that I'd be moving to another house on the other side of the country!
So I asked him to prove who he was - which he couldn't. The best he could do was to pass me to his boss who gave me a URL
http://thewindowssupport.com/
At that website, there's a phone number which he quoted me as being at their Bristol offices. The number has an 020 London code.
I suspect that this particular Bristol is the one in Mumbai.
As he was talking I Googled the phone number & found several sites reporting this scam - here's one:
http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/02032865123/3
They're all full of comments like:
I had a call from this foreign sounding guy, but it all sounded so authentic. Foolishly, I allowed him to access my computer.He said it was amazing that my computer was working with so many viruses on it, and unless I immediately installed Windows 7 my computer would crash within a few days, and be useless. However, he said I could have all viruses removed, and W7 installed for £350! I told him I was not prepared to do that, so he said I could have it for £199, with 1 year's protection. Again I said I wished to think it over, and had a final offer of £60!
There's also talk of downloading a piece of software from their 'official windows support group' website which logs keystrokes.
Lots of people have had their credit cards cleared out by this scam apparently, so beware.
I got a call from a guy telling me that he works for Microsoft at Windows support & that my PC is sending them loads of error reports (not true, because I always opt not to when the PC does a burp) anyway, he'll talk me through how to sort this problem out.
I asked him how he got my phone number & he said it was on the documentation from when I bought my PC - interesting, as when I bought the PC, I didn't know that I'd be moving to another house on the other side of the country!
So I asked him to prove who he was - which he couldn't. The best he could do was to pass me to his boss who gave me a URL
http://thewindowssupport.com/
At that website, there's a phone number which he quoted me as being at their Bristol offices. The number has an 020 London code.
I suspect that this particular Bristol is the one in Mumbai.
As he was talking I Googled the phone number & found several sites reporting this scam - here's one:
http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/02032865123/3
They're all full of comments like:
I had a call from this foreign sounding guy, but it all sounded so authentic. Foolishly, I allowed him to access my computer.He said it was amazing that my computer was working with so many viruses on it, and unless I immediately installed Windows 7 my computer would crash within a few days, and be useless. However, he said I could have all viruses removed, and W7 installed for £350! I told him I was not prepared to do that, so he said I could have it for £199, with 1 year's protection. Again I said I wished to think it over, and had a final offer of £60!
There's also talk of downloading a piece of software from their 'official windows support group' website which logs keystrokes.
Lots of people have had their credit cards cleared out by this scam apparently, so beware.