Nobody likes spam or phishing emails and it is getting increasingly more difficult to work…
Phone scammers
Last October (2012), I wrote a post on my blog about cold calling tech-support scams entitled “Fighting back against the scammers“. I have to say that at that time, I had never experienced it personally however, since I moved into my new office, I have had 3 such calls in the last 2 days ! In actual fact I also had one a few weeks before when I just happened to be having an on-site meeting with builders and I just happened to pick up the phone.
All the callers had Indian accents, the first two were female and the last a male. On all the calls I received, the telephone line quality typically was very poor (maybe that is is another good indicator to set the alarm bells ringing for you). I have to say that they do sound quite credible technically and even when challenged they still persist with their “story” and try to convince you.
Having done some further research on the topic recently, the best advice seems to be don’t give them any information, never let them access your PC and just hang up on them. If you are feeling brave, if you can, ask for their name, the name of their company and a phone number and web address. In most cases, asking such questions will most probably result in the caller hanging up on you but if you can get any information like this, you can pass it on to Action Fraud, the UK’s national fraud and internet crime reporting centre. The more information they can get from such occurrences, the more chance there is that they may be able to take some action.
Some useful links to more information about these scams:
- Don’t fall for phony phone tech support (Microsoft)
- Anatomy of a scam: Phone caller warns your PC is infected
Hope this helps.