Every day this week I've had a phonecall from a company called "Windows support", telling me that I have a virus on my computer. I don't even give them the chance to go any further, but it's really annoying to stop what you're doing to answer the phone only to find it's a scam.

I've had a few of these too and find that the odd anglo-Saxon phrase seems to distract them, however one day they rang and spoke to my 'better half', who told them that she wasn't interested as we had just had new windows recently installed!!!!!!

They never phoned back - probably confused them entirely and no doubt are still trying to work out what she was talking about!!!!!!

I've had a few of these too and find that the odd anglo-Saxon phrase seems to distract them, however one day they rang and spoke to my 'better half', who told them that she wasn't interested as we had just had new windows recently installed!!!!!!

They never phoned back - probably confused them entirely and no doubt are still trying to work out what she was talking about!!!!!!

I have been getting these calls for a few months now. I find that being firm and telling them to "go away" has no effect. Perhaps my callers have thicker skins!

Tony

I've had a few of these too and find that the odd anglo-Saxon phrase seems to distract them, however one day they rang and spoke to my 'better half', who told them that she wasn't interested as we had just had new windows recently installed!!!!!!

They never phoned back - probably confused them entirely and no doubt are still trying to work out what she was talking about!!!!!!

Hi,
This response is a treasure.. Got me chuckling ..

This sort of call can be very convincing if you have actually had a problem with your computer and the computer has automatically reported it to Microsoft . One such "company" gives the impression that it knows about these reports, and acting on behalf of Microsoft, they are going to put things right. They spend a lot of time getting you to run around your computer turning up notifications of apparent faults (which I should imagine are routine failings which everybody gets, if you only know where to look for the reports of them), convince you that a lot is wrong and Microsoft have hired them to put it right, and then want you to click on something but to pay them £40 first. This is the time to stop cooperating.

One clue is that these calls always sound as though they have come from a certain heavily populated mainly sunny country, but then a lot of genuine support teams are based there too, so this is not an infallible guide by any means.

"They spend a lot of time getting you to run around your computer turning up notifications of apparent faults (which I should imagine are routine failings which everybody gets, if you only know where to look for the reports of them), "


They tell you to look in your Event Viewer system log, yesterday mine had 7 warnings and 10 errors. Some of these are for a file failing to load due to the virus program blocking it!

"They spend a lot of time getting you to run around your computer turning up notifications of apparent faults (which I should imagine are routine failings which everybody gets, if you only know where to look for the reports of them), "


They tell you to look in your Event Viewer system log, yesterday mine had 7 warnings and 10 errors. Some of these are for a file failing to load due to the virus program blocking it!

Thank you, I’m sure that’s what it is. And going back far enough, they unearth hundreds of them. I’m not clear if you are merely clarifying this technical point, or if you have yourself had experience of “them” doing it.

I was soon put on my guard by the man’s complete ignorance of a simple enough point. He had been trained to tell me that my Windows firewall was not uptodate but needed updating. Now, apart from receiving automatic Windows updates as most of us do, I was able to reassure him that I don’t use the Windows firewall anyway, but another firewall which comes with an antivirus programme. His response was something along the lines of “No, no, antivirus not same as firewall. You not use Windows firewall, you have all this problem”. He had been well trained in blinding novices with science, but only with the science he had been well trained to demonstrate.

As well as trying to get you to pay them money for something which is not necessary, if you were stupid enough to download the software they wish to sell you, it would probably contain a virus, worm or trojan.
In addition, I have heard that they try to persuade you that they can deal with all your "problems" if you hand over control of your computer to them.

As well as trying to get you to pay them money for something which is not necessary, if you were stupid enough to download the software they wish to sell you, it would probably contain a virus, worm or trojan.
In addition, I have heard that they try to persuade you that they can deal with all your "problems" if you hand over control of your computer to them.

Unfortunately an elderly lady friend fell foul to this. She allowed them to take remote control of her computer, but when they wanted money "to fix it", she said no.

I've escaped for a few day and am enjoying the gorgeous weather, but not before getting another phone call yesterday morning. I told him I had 2 pc's with different windows; could he tell me which version of windows, so that I'd know which pc was the problem. This question was followed by a deafening silence and eventually a wrong guess, at which point I put the phone down.

When they first call, pretend you or someone else in the room is making another call and let them hear you say, "got them on the line now". Then keep them talking for a couple of minutes, put your hand over the mouth piece, but not enough to prevent the caller from hearing, and say "traced where he is yet officer"

Worked when I kept getting an idiot ringing me at 3am every night for a week.