I recently had a call from someone claiming to be from windows support to help me with detected viruses.

In my case the caller had some specific details on one of my PC's, it was not just a totally blind call. The detail was such that I didn't hang up immediately but made sure that I didn't do anything to give them extra detail.

A couple of variations seemed to be around,
- One is a supposedly legal business trying to trap people into unnecessary support contracts.
- The others are trying to gain access to the PC presumably to grab data off it.

http://www.scamwatch.gov.au/content/.../itemId/792165 provides some info.

Microsoft claim that they will never cold call about PC issues.

If you do get a call try and record any specifics that they give (sometimes they will nominate a website address to confirm that they are a real company, names etc). The official advice is to hang up. Some have reported multiple calls and callbacks to complain about rude comments by the intended victim to the unwanted caller.

It's also suggested to disconnect networking and run a full virus scan if any access has been obtained.

The call had very strong echo, apparently skype and similar are used to reduce call costs. A foreign accent although I don't think it was indian.

It appears that a lot of such calls are being made.

R0bert

RObert,

Yep, Yep, Yep!

I began to get these sort of calls about a year ago. Same spiel saying that they were from Microsoft and that they'd detected a problem. I didn't hang up at first, but with the echo and the foreign accent I couldn't understand anything anyway...so then I hung up.

I googled around and came up with something in the U.K. that described almost the same scam, so I knew it was a scam. They ring periodically still - some which register "overseas" on my phone and some with numbers inside Australia, although they're always accompanied by a strong echo, delay and foreign accent. I usually hang up the moment I now detect them.

My mother got one telling her the same thing - and she doesn't even own a computer.

I, every time, tell them I am getting the person in charge and leave them on the phone hanging up in about ten minutes.

That's patently true, R0bert.

>>Microsoft claim that they will never cold call about PC issues.<<

If they did, their entire workforce would be on the phone, 24/7/365.

The really staggering thing is that so many people - and corporations - still put up with Microsoft products, given the wealth of alternatives that are available.

If you bought anything else that was so riddled with pitfalls, catches and plain downright inefficiencies, you'd have it back in the shop in a New York minute.

Dear R0bert,

When they tried it with me I told them that if the ISP gave them my details then it was against the law and I was reporting the matter to the police.

As I had their number with a Sydney area code I rang the ACCC but they said they could do little because even if they shut down a particular number it would soon be activated again since the calls were coming from overseas.

Very poor I thought. They should be making life as difficult as possible for these guys. Another one is a virus that freezes your computer except for Google which only allows you to type in a bogus Microsoft site. Friend of mine ended up paying “Microsoft” for a fix that certainly freed his computer but it was the same scammers who infected it in the first place.

Another one is people ordering iphone 4s online with fake details. A month ago someone set up a Telstra account with my wife's licence details, a fake email and address. The scam is to get them sent to a vacant address where the courier is forced to leave a note telling people to pick the goods up at the local post office, where they then present with fake ID. Nearly got us. Plays havoc with the credit rating until it is sorted apparently. One to watch for. Again the police were fairly disinterested but a week later we saw someone had been done for a similar con and had made over $100,000.

I received a few of these calls over the space of a week some months back. I played with them a bit, then set up a newly installed system that I could let them loose on. In this particular instance they did nothing of significance to it, and then directed it to a site where I could sign up for a support service, which of course I didn't do. The 'support tech' was clearly annoyed by what I did type in, and threatened to corrupt my system. My response that I didn't care, that the system had been set up for him anyway, and that he could trash it if he liked, went down like a lead balloon.

Anyway, after that I decided that some more fun was in order, so I spent a day writing some software to let me modify the data sent from the web browser, so as to make the site the tech sends me to sign up on 'misbehave' (if you think that's impossible because it uses SSL, it just shows you haven't thought it through).

To my considerable chagrin, with one exception just before I had to go out, I haven't received a support call since. Maybe one day...

Sylvia.