Here are some crooks who desperately need to be shut down, so spread the word on this scam to everyone you know.
I just had the most incredible scam caller on my private phone line. By his accent, the guy was obviously from India. He said he was from Windows and that my computer and my website were constantly mailing out error messages to the Windows company. I played along and acted dumb as long as I could. The caller eventually hung up, but he was a very gifted scammer. I searched online to see if others had received a similar phone call and I pulled up the following article:
My experience was identical to that of the author of this article. This is apparently a huge world wide scam, and it’s quite convincing so avoid it like the plague.
BTW, if you don’t want to click on the link (which is obviously wise) here’s the following search string I ran on Google: strange call windows event viewer
It will pull up the same article I’ve linked above.
Feel free to send anyone you know the link to tonight’s post on the Neighbors At War site. Heck, it might even generate some new readers for our regular fare.
-Ward
Ward, you are apparently far from alone on the Windows scam. Please see this article about a woman from Hamilton Township, Pennsylvania who was a victim of the scam and the information in the article about the scam, FTC, and the extent of these scams. The comments are informative too.
The Entire article, by Chris Reber, of the poconorecord.com can be found at:
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
“Computer scammer strikes in Hamilton Township”
“When Sharon Rawle of Hamilton Township got a call from Microsoft earlier this year, advising her that it wanted to fix her slow computer, she was thrilled.
Unfortunately she would eventually learn the caller was a scammer who took her for more than $400. And while Rawle feels embarrassed that she exposed herself to the scam, she says she wants others to learn from her mistake.
“I understand I made a mistake,” she said. “It’s embarrassing, but I don’t care as long as I’m the last one.”
Rawle says she was an easy target, because she actually was having problems with her computer…”
Again, the entire article is at: http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
The links to the story are not correct. When you click on them they say, “sorry that page cannot be found.”
Having trouble with my computer, I went online and searched for a website for the manufacturer. Long story short it was not the manufacturer even though it appeared to be. The “tech” was able to take control of my computer, with my permission, and after keeping me on the phone for a couple of hours he hits me with the amount he’ll need on a credit card to “fix” my problem. At that point I became very suspicious and hung up. Lesson learned. Computers problems should be dealt with on a local basis with a company you can deal with face-to-face. Too many scammers on the internet looking for ways to rip the consumers off.
Hi Nila, Strange, but I clicked on the link and it worked OK. I went back to verify the web address and it was correct.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/i-am-calling-you-from-windows-a-tech-support-scammer-dials-ars-technica/
But as all our readers know, web links have a mysterious way of disappearing after I’ve linked to them. So if anyone can’t pull up a link feel free to email me and I’ll either post it again or find another link to the same information.
The link in your post Ward, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/i-am-calling-you-from-windows-a-tech-support-scammer-dials-ars-technica/, worked for me. Maybe, trying to open it in a separate browser would help, if some cannot link to it from your site. It has happened to me on other occasions that I cannot click the link on from the article/blog it is in. I would get an error message. But, sometimes, if I opened a new page and copied and pasted the link in the address bar, it went right to the page. Just a thought that may help!
Ward, Nila. Cynthia
The link worked for me