Major scam - take care of cold calling from "Microsoft"

There's been a lot of cold callers, purporting to be from Microsoft, telling people their computers are serious infected and at risk of crashing. They then get the victim to go to places on their computer where they see lots of harmless files with red crosses and yellow exclamation marks beside them. The caller (usually a woman with an Indian accent) then gasps in horror and says this confirm the perilous state of the computer.

About an hour later, after more of this drivel, another person tells them their only solution is to download a bit of software which will take care of the problem and it 'only costs $***'! Fact is there is nothing wrong with the computer and the software, which the unwary victim has paid for, actually makes it possible for them to access all their passwords and other info, essentially identity theft.

The police had a piece on today's BBC news about it. Turns out it is an organised crime scam, very sophisticated, in Europe and Asia. They have a huge calling centres and employ hundreds of people.

Read the BBC report here Warning over anti-virus cold-calls to UK internet users

 

Typical of the TV to get hold of something which has been doing the rounds for a very long time.

 

I've had these calls several times a week for ages, Daisees.
The fact that my computer was in a recycling skip in smithereens didn't seem to affect it's ability to send out these infected messages

 

I know it's been around for ages but if SOCA felt it worthy to ask for a warning to be put out, who am I to argue! :wink:

 

The BBC News - Technology section is a good source of up to date general information on the latest scams and threats. I tend to check it daily along with their Science & Environment section which I find quite interesting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology/

 

I had one of these calls some time ago, I played stupid for a time (it's not difficult) then eventually said that my computer was fine as I use a Linux system which is not affected by virus's. They dropped the line immediately.

 

At last we no longer feel left out of it, we had one of these calls this morning! Normally we don't answer when the phone says International but we missed this and picked up. They soon rang off!