Kitchen Garden Forum

Had a phone call today from a companies call centre informing me that Windows had informed said company that I had over one thousand errors on my computer and that they were authorised by Windows to guide me on how to remove them.Needless to say I declined their offer.
Has anyone else received this phone call with this offer?

Goodness Snooky, that's a shocker - thank you for posting it!

Hi Snooky

This has been going on for some time.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... c054c73703

Safest to assume that all cold-calls are scams. I usually put the phone down or demand, in Welsh, that they speak Welsh to me.
Or you could always tell them, no thanks, you've just had all your Windows replaced by Everest

Though I am registered for no cold calls I still get some. I always say I am interested, then put the phone down and watch the telly.

I had a call similar from someone with an Indian accent (claiming to be from Microsoft) who said that I had downloaded spyware onto my computer when browsing the Internet and he wanted me to let him help me remove it! He got a lecture and was told that I was more than capable of dealing with such an event should it occur without his help.

I read up on this and found that the person in question would get you to login to your computer and agree to let them help you. In so doing you would effectively have agreed to subscribe to their service and would run up an astronomic bill. Must admit my first thought was more that the caller wanted to gain remote access to my computer!

Action Fraud website http://www.actionfraud.org.uk/watch-out-for-scams-that-use-microsofts-name-aug10 has this advice.

Microsoft does not make unsolicited phone calls to help you fix your computer. Fraudsters make these phone calls to try to steal from you and damage your computer with malware. Treat all unsolicited phone calls with scepticism and don’t give out any personal information.

More information here http://www.crn.com/news/security/230800173/microsoft-warns-of-tech-support-phone-scam.htm

I had an Indian person saying he was from BT and was trying to get me to put my computer on and take the phone to it and he would be able to sort out all my problems.
I do not have any problems.
He then gave me the amazing news that for £12 he could let me have Freeview. I said to him why should I pay you good money when I can sit in an armchair in my lounge and watch it for nothing?
He then terminated the call.
Was it a try on or not? I don't know but calls like that always annoy me.
I would never buy anything from a cold call over the phone.
I didn't know that BT were using India as a base to sell things!
JB.

todays latest-a yahoo awards scam !

I've had the "you have a problem with your computer" scam calls as well. I let them talk a while then said "but I don't have a computer". They apologised and rang off. Hopefully they might have taken my name off their list as well.

Another good response I've found goes like this. If the caller is from a double-glazing company I say "Ah, actually I'm a window fitter so I've no interest" If they are from a mobile phone company I say " Ah, actually I work for Vodafone so have deal with them" etc etc. I can almost hear them crossing out my name fron their list! It does seem to work - try it!.

Regards

Ian

A whistle by the phone usually does the trick, or alternatively say 'who do you want' no matter what they say I say that they died. Both work,.

Seriously in your BT phone book there is a code that you can tap in and it stops a lot of spam calls, after six monts or so they seem to come back and if you tap it in again it works again. It is the telecomms equivalent of the Post Office scheme which also seems to work for Junk Mail

CoMpO

Some time ago an acquaintance of mine phoned BT to report a noise on his line. He was put through to a gentleman in India, who politely asked him what it sounded like.
"Bacon frying' was his innocent reply, upon which the call was terminated!

Ian in Cumbria wrote:I've had the "you have a problem with your computer" scam calls as well. I let them talk a while then said "but I don't have a computer". They apologised and rang off. Hopefully they might have taken my name off their list as well.

Another good response I've found goes like this. If the caller is from a double-glazing company I say "Ah, actually I'm a window fitter so I've no interest" If they are from a mobile phone company I say " Ah, actually I work for Vodafone so have deal with them" etc etc. I can almost hear them crossing out my name fron their list! It does seem to work - try it!.

Regards

Ian

I told my caller that I had worked in the computer industry (OK I wasn't a technician but he didn't know that) You could hear his shock - a woman knows about computers!

Compo wrote:A whistle by the phone usually does the trick, or alternatively say 'who do you want' no matter what they say I say that they died. Both work,.

Seriously in your BT phone book there is a code that you can tap in and it stops a lot of spam calls, after six monts or so they seem to come back and if you tap it in again it works again. It is the telecomms equivalent of the Post Office scheme which also seems to work for Junk Mail

CoMpO

We've been registered with this for years - it's is the "telephone preferencing service" but we still get cold calls - I don't think it has mush of a sway with respect to fireign calls which most of these seem to be.

Hello GLA
We are signed up with the TPS. As you say it does not stop foreign calls and also it does not stop calls which pretend to be conducting a survey but turn out to be marketing calls. Some survey calls are genuine though but even these we don't bother with. Another dodge is when the caller claims wrongly that you have been in contact with them before.
The most irritating feature of them is the automatic dialling they use so that the caller always has something to deal with but often means that when you answer the phone it goes dead.
We have caller display which is very useful as these calls show up as number 'unavailable' or 'international' and of course they come either at lunch time or early evening. We tell friends and family abroad to try not to call at these times!

John