Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) BEWARE

While on the PC this m/ing the phone went an Asian claiming to be from Windows ?. You have a virus in your PC Sir I have been told to contact you to repair it if you dont mind. Alarm bells ring his English was not very good . But he knew all about my PC and was in it like a rat in a drain . After a while I spotted an edge to a temper when I could not understand his speach and wondered , if this was windows then why on the phone . Yet he was making my PC sing and dance. After a while he asked for my address to send out some stuff and was told no , he said he had it already and was just wanting me to confirm it with him . Was told if you have it then you dont need it confirming . I put the phone down . He again phoned why did you put the phone down , you wanted my address and are not getting it his temper getting a little uneasy . I thought thats it and placed the phone down again . Phoned the Fraud squad I had a hacker on the phone gave the fraud officer the details this freak had gave me not one had made sence . Now my wife and I have to change our plastic DONE , phone the banks DONE , take my PC to get it looked at . I may have your E-Mail address so if you get an odd call or e-mail beware . How this goon got a lot of my details I dont know the chap at the fraud squad said these blokes can con anyone they are so skilled . BEWARE I may not be on for a while as my PC is off to be inspected.

Hmmm...... I have to say that having been contacted so many times over the years over everything from spurious accident claims, payment protection miselling, pensions etc that when I now answer the phone and hear an asian voice on the end, i just put the phone down. And... Cicerone...I hope you don't take that as a racist comment, it certainly isn't meant as one.

It's quite a well known scam

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/security/3378798/microsoft-phone-scam-dont-be-victim/

I rarely answer the phone to any caller I don't recognise on my home phone.

Any need for calling me out? Have you got a problem with what I have posted?

Edit: I am not a sensitive person particularly, the posts I had a problem with were removed which tells you all you need to know about them. The fact that a lot of telecomms/PC fraud comes from certain countries quite obviously isn't racist. I'm anti racist, not anti common sense.

JT, there are lots of these scammers phoning. Not just from one "company" either.

There is a simple answer - never ever give details out over the phone when someone calls you, also never allow them access to your PC etc. No one from Microsoft, your service provider (e.g. BTInternet) will phone you for information or to access your computer. Similarly Microsoft, McAffee, et al do NOT issue virus warnings - receive an email purporting to have originated from them, just bin it, do NOT forward.

We get 3 or more phone calls from these scammers per week. My wife tells them to go away. Depending on what mood I'm in I may string them along a little (after all, I'm in the trade). One day I might ask what religion one of them is, then try to quote the relevant lines from their own about lies and theft. I've certainly called several liers - truth hurts occasionally. Almost without exception (one was African) they have all been Asian sounding. The African guy actually admitted he was calling from Nairobi! Just trying to help the Telecomms companies keep their profits up and cause the scammers to pay

Cheers,

I am ex-directory and a registered at the telephone preference service. If I ever get a cold call of any description the first thing I ask is where the person calling got the number from. If they answer that (half of them ring off at that point) I explain that I'm busy at present but if they'll give me their contact details I'll phone them back. Most are unable to do this for some reason. If they can give me their details I complain about them to the TPS.

If they're UK, I'll do the same.
But I've not had any marketing calls for several years... I guess word got round that our number was registered.

I wasn't having a go at you! I'm certainly not racist but I am against wealthy organisations in this country using cheap labour in India.

Calm down Nick, IMHO Jays has always posted useful/informative/amusing/helpful posts and certainly never offensive ones; and I certainly cannot recall ever seeing a post I had any doubts about so don't think he deserves your reaction. To the contrary I felt he was ensuring you wouldn't take it the wrong way.

I would also ask that you read my post on that thread. There isn't a definitive line as far as I'm concerned, just two obvious extremes and a lot of grey in the middle. We just need to use common sense. And until this current attention dies down people will be treading cautiously which is what I felt Jays did. Your edit is reassuring however.

As you know I myself am half 'Asian' but I have never been offended by anything posted on TM yet. I don't agree with everything that's posted, far from it, but it very rarely goes past the 'grey'.

I usually get this a couple of times a year i have great fun by pretending to be real slow and asking really stupid questions. Ask them to wait while you figure something out put the phone down and do something else for a few minutes then come back and ask them to repeat stuff and then put the phone down etc etc. My record is about 40 minutes and one seriously pissed off guy at the other end before they hang up on me.