Well and truly done up like a kipper.

[icehockeyboy]

I couldn't get into my Hotmail account yesterday, in fact I'd been having issues for a while, but having reset all the security stuff, it was taking me round in circles, so I thought I'd contact Microsoft.

Except, if you have a free e mail service, you can't, so instead,despite you believing you are talking to them, you are actually through to an outside company.

It is seamless, and they certainly appear to be experts at their job, sorting out the problem, but then....they hit you with the price.....almost £120 to sort things out, but with the benefit of a years service, which, judging by the problems associated with my Lappy yesterday, was totally necessary.

It seems I had been well and truly hacked, but these guys at Mc something or other sorted it.

Now, when I Googled the name of the company (forgot it at the moment as I'm not on that Lappy)
It seems they only scored a 50% trust rating, and some people thought they were scammers.

Now, they sorted my sh*t out, but it made me wonder, had they put the nasties in the computer in the first place?
Any thoughts boys and girls?

[anthonyTD]

Makes you think doesn't it! :steam:
Really sorry to hear that mate.:(
I couldn't get into my Hotmail account yesterday, in fact I'd been having issues for a while, but having reset all the security stuff, it was taking me round in circles, so I thought I'd contact Microsoft.

Except, if you have a free e mail service, you can't, so instead,despite you believing you are talking to them, you are actually through to an outside company.

It is seamless, and they certainly appear to be experts at their job, sorting out the problem, but then....they hit you with the price.....almost £120 to sort things out, but with the benefit of a years service, which, judging by the problems associated with my Lappy yesterday, was totally necessary.

It seems I had been well and truly hacked, but these guys at Mc something or other sorted it.

Now, when I Googled the name of the company (forgot it at the moment as I'm not on that Lappy)
It seems they only scored a 50% trust rating, and some people thought they were scammers.

Now, they sorted my sh*t out, but it made me wonder, had they put the nasties in the computer in the first place?
Any thoughts boys and girls?

[chris@panteg]

Bit concerned you've been scammed, how did you come to contact this company? Or did they contact you?

[Mark Grant]

Does look very fishy,

Hopefully you did not phone a number that appeared on your computer screen or respond to any emails or incoming phone calls offering to fix your PC.

If you gave someone 'naughty' remote access to your PC they could have copied data off it while keeping you talking then asked for you card details to 'fix' it.

If that is what happened you have a problem :(

[icehockeyboy]

Bit concerned you've been scammed, how did you come to contact this company? Or did they contact you?

It's in the second paragraph of my OP.

Basically you think you are contacting Microsoft, as, after obviously typing Microsoft into the search engine, it seems that you are contacting MS, but as the McHelper person pointed out, MS 'farm out' tech problem help to another company when you don't pay for your e mail, as in Hotmail.

[hifi_dave]

I've had a couple of e-mails supposedly from Outlook and Microsoft concerning my Hotmail account. It all looks good but I have not been tempted to click on their link and nothing untoward has happened. Hopefully, they were scams..:scratch:

[chris@panteg]

I've had a couple of e-mails supposedly from Outlook and Microsoft concerning my Hotmail account. It all looks good but I have not been tempted to click on their link and nothing untoward has happened. Hopefully, they were scams..:scratch:

Most likely the link will infect your pc with a virus , lots of scams from companies claiming to be affiliated to MS but they are scammers !

[icehockeyboy]

As I said earlier, I could not access my e mail account, and everything I tried took me round and round in circles.

I did receive a warning message fro Microsoft saying they believed someone had accessed my account, whether or not I was scammed I don't know.
Oddly enough, more or less as soon as McHelper had cured the problem, I got another message once again saying about 3rd party activity in my account, they advised me that it was a scam!

All seems ok now.....we will see........

[walpurgis]

I'd try another email service. At least for a while. Can't you close the Hotmail account and open a new one?

[icehockeyboy]

I'd try another email service. At least for a while. Can't you close the Hotmail account and open a new one?

McHelper have already closed it, and I've set up a new one, but it was so frustrating when you can't access your e mail to retrieve important shiz!

[hifi_dave]

Earlier today, I received, on my Hotmail account, a message supposedly from outlook .com, informing me that my account is temporarily blocked and that I should contact them on the link to outlook.com. It all looks authentic with no spelling mistakes and even a load of small print.

Anyhow, I have chosen to ignore it and my account appears to be functioning as normal with several e-mails sent and received.

I'm guessing this is a scam or virus or whatever. Has anyone else had similar ?

[hifilover]

If your unsure of a link just hover your cursor over it and see what address it brings up!

If you're not expecting the email then 9/10 it's spam so IGNORE it and bin it!

Companies will NOT contact you re any issues this way; it'll be a notification via software updates whether it be MS or Mac etc...

[hifi_dave]

I'll try that next time. I usually put anything suspicious in the junk file, then click 'block' and it shows the address before it disappears.

This message looked very good and official but the address was something like outlook67386759.com.

It's good to know that any such company will not contact by e-mail. Puts my mind at rest.

[walpurgis]

I junk any unexpected emails or those from unknown senders or purporting to be from a well known source. If in doubt and if I have an account with the particular company I visit their site. Any messages will be available there.

[jandl100]

:thumbsup: Exactly, Geoff.

Never, ever use a link in an email to a 'secure' site with personal info or monetary implications. These days the real ones never ever do that - they tell you to log on to the site in the normal way and proceed from there.

[Mark Grant]

Earlier today, I received, on my Hotmail account, a message supposedly from outlook .com, informing me that my account is temporarily blocked and that I should contact them on the link to outlook.com. It all looks authentic with no spelling mistakes and even a load of small print.

Anyhow, I have chosen to ignore it and my account appears to be functioning as normal with several e-mails sent and received.

I'm guessing this is a scam or virus or whatever. Has anyone else had similar ?

Just the usual phishing scam.

Best thing in my opinion would be to cancel hotmail and use an email address on your domain name as it looks much more professional.

Looking at your website http://www.radlettaudio.co.uk/ it links to the property jungle (bottom right)
http://www.thepropertyjungle.com/web-hosting.html
that says they include unlimited pop/imap email accounts so it looks like you are already paying for a proper email service so you could have dave @ radlett rather than hotmail. The company you are with also offers free technical support.

Also with Hotmail you have no control who is blocked from sending you emails, an IT geek decides for you. with your own service you are in charge :)

Then there is the risk of hackers gaining access to your online hotmail emails and copying customer data or scamming your customers by pretending to be you with an amazing deal. Disposable free email is a bit risky for a business and could even be a data protection issue.
http://www.ictknowledgebase.org.uk/cloudcomputingdataprotection

Someone here will always assist if you need any IT help :)