SCAM Or NOT???? | Golden Skate

SCAM Or NOT????

Dee4707

Ice Is Slippery - Alexie Yagudin
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Country
United-States
I got one phone call today-- the automated message said ... this is Microsoft and you have several problems with your computer, you need to press 1 now.

I just hung up.

Call #2 (about 10-15 minutes from the 1st call) was an actual person -- he had a very thick accent -- he said...we got information that your computer has been hacked into and there is suspicious activity coming from your IP address. I asked what company he was calling from and he said Windows...I asked if I could get his name....he said Rob....I asked what the phone number was and he said ...844-866-4626. I said again where are you from .... he said Windows Tech Support. I said I would call back later. The one thing that got to me and I can understand how people get befuddled by these calls, my computer was off. I understand that he had a 50/50 chance that he would get it right but....still. He said please turn your computer on...you'll see the activity I'm talking about. I said I would call back and just hung up.

I have not checked or logged into my important places like banking or ebay, paypal sites.

I know very little about computers, do you think this was a scam???

How to check if this was a scam???
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Yes, it is a scam. The bottom line is, never give private info to someone who makes an unsolicited call to you.

And never let anyone talk you into letting them have remote access to your computer.

From Sam's link

Neither Microsoft nor our partners make unsolicited phone calls (also known as cold calls) to charge you for computer security or software fixes.
 

karne

in Emergency Backup Mode
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 1, 2013
Country
Australia
Duh.

For starters, Windows is not a company. Microsoft is. And they don't call people saying you have a problem.
 

demarinis5

Gold for the Winter Prince!
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
I got one phone call today-- the automated message said ... this is Microsoft and you have several problems with your computer, you need to press 1 now.

I just hung up.

Call #2 (about 10-15 minutes from the 1st call) was an actual person -- he had a very thick accent -- he said...we got information that your computer has been hacked into and there is suspicious activity coming from your IP address. I asked what company he was calling from and he said Windows...I asked if I could get his name....he said Rob....I asked what the phone number was and he said ...844-866-4626. I said again where are you from .... he said Windows Tech Support. I said I would call back later. The one thing that got to me and I can understand how people get befuddled by these calls, my computer was off. I understand that he had a 50/50 chance that he would get it right but....still. He said please turn your computer on...you'll see the activity I'm talking about. I said I would call back and just hung up.

I have not checked or logged into my important places like banking or ebay, paypal sites.

I know very little about computers, do you think this was a scam???

How to check if this was a scam???

I got the same call yesterday. The scammers must be on a roll. This is not the first time I have had a
call like this. The best advice I have to give you is to hang up and don't even listen to their spiel,
and report it.
 

satine

v Yuki Ishikawa v
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Yep, this is a really famous scam. I'm surprised it's still ongoing, I remember hearing about it many years ago..
 

Violet Bliss

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
LOL. You must know or have experienced all the loops big companies like Microsoft make you go through when you try to get help or support from them. Do you believe they would call you personally to volunteer help for some vague problems you don't even know about? Suspicious activities from people's computers are not even their responsibility.
 

WeakAnkles

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 1, 2011
One piece of advice a techie gave me--you should get ONE separate credit card for all your internet transactions, and ask the bank to give you as low a limit on it as possible. And that credit card should ONLY be used for web business. I thought it was sound advice.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
It is good advice, for sure. Also, use a credit rather than a debit card, if possible, I think.
 

Violet Bliss

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
One piece of advice a techie gave me--you should get ONE separate credit card for all your internet transactions, and ask the bank to give you as low a limit on it as possible. And that credit card should ONLY be used for web business. I thought it was sound advice.

Some people use prepaid cards for web use.
 

Dee4707

Ice Is Slippery - Alexie Yagudin
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Country
United-States
Thanks everyone for the super advice, I know that I can always count on you!!!

Some people use prepaid cards for web use.

WA said:
One piece of advice a techie gave me--you should get ONE separate credit card for all your internet transactions,

SkateFiguring & WA, thanks that is super advice.
 

ks777

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
I was watching news today at home and heard that the same thing happened to an old lady. She didn't know so she let him take over her computer access.. now he is asking for money or she won't get her computer back. Its a scam, the scammer lives in India or something.
 

Ladskater

~ Figure Skating Is My Passion ~
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
It is definitely a Scam...you did the right thing. We have alerts from our IET dept. at work and also workshops we can take about how to protect our information from such scams. The rule is: if something sounds strange and too good to be true, it probably is a scam. Always listen to your "gut feeling" and check things out before clicking on them.
 

CdnSk8Fan

Rinkside
Joined
May 21, 2018
absolutely a scam. also people have gotten popup's indicating / mimicking major software companies that your computer is not secure/virus/etc.. and you have to go to the link provided and give a credit card # . I've heard people losing $$ until they figure out that something wasn't right :(
 

CoyoteChris

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 4, 2004
I bet I have had 10 calls from 10 separate people with accents claiming to be Windows support people....it is clear by the noise they are in a big boiler room of a phone operation....this is a very large industrialized scamming operation.....if you think about how many calls they are placing to all of us, this has to be a huge operation and therefore not at all hard to find....the problem is probably it is in a country that doesn't care to have it shut down....while someone might argue that all they are stealing from the informed is time, we are still talking about 100s of thousands of hours of wasted time on top of the fraud money from the uninformed.....I think our govt needs to get a bit more aggressive......and I need a better selective phone system!

(NBC is saying it is India...)
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/were-windows-anatomy-cold-calling-scam-f6C10631331
 

Violet Bliss

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
Lots of scams come from Nigeria. All kinds. There are scam call centers in Canada too, sometimes technically legal. I'm sure they are all over the US too. They usually call/email from out of state/jurisdiction. Of course, these days, there are many cyber scams.

The scammers sell sucker lists to each other too because victims, many elderly, can usually be scammed repeatedly.
 

krisella

Spectator
Joined
Oct 27, 2014
There's no need for you to check if it was a scam because indeed, it was. There's no way for anyone not in front of your computer to know what's on there. Next time you get a call like that, blow a whistle and break that scammer's ear drums! Lol!
 

krisella

Spectator
Joined
Oct 27, 2014
Well, looking up the phone number at Callercenter might convince you, too. I found a complaint lodged on the website, confirming that the call was obviously phony. Hope this helps!
 
Top