New phone scam: People claiming they are from Microsoft

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Dragon_Cooler
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New phone scam: People claiming they are from Microsoft

Post by Dragon_Cooler »

My mother got a call today from a person who said he was from Microsoft. He stated Microsoft had been getting error messages from her computer and if she didn't fix the problems, her computer would crash soon. He wanted her to log onto the computer while he was on the phone so he could help fix the problems. He started telling her where to go and what to type in each field. She called me on another line while the "Microsoft" employee was still on the phone and asked a couple questions. When the "Microsoft" employee heard her talking to me, he couldn't get off the phone fast enough.

The wierd thing was, they asked specifically for the wife of the household and knew her name, address and phone number and that they had XP. Obviously the personal information can be obtained easily and I assume they guessed on the Windows XP part. The guy had an indian voice and unfortunately my parents dont have caller id. She sent an email to the local news company and they said they have been getting a lot of emails about it and sent her this link:
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/ ... sname.aspx

Im just glad she was smart enough to know something was up and to give me a call. Sadly a lot of other people may not. Id love for them to give me or another techy person a call and see how far it goes and to see what all they ask.

So anyone googling for this, its a scam!!! At the very least keep them on the phone and see what they are after and waist the hell out of their time. I am pretty sure they are taking advantage of the new gmail calling feature so they cant be traced.
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Major_A
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Re: New phone scam: People claiming they are from Microsoft

Post by Major_A »

Thanks for the heads up. My grandmother asked me a few months ago if Exxon owing her millions of dollars via email was legit. So she's definitely going to be getting an email telling her to hang up.
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Re: New phone scam: People claiming they are from Microsoft

Post by Sporg »

Thanks for the heads up, Dragon. Posted on Facebook.
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
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Kaos Kid
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Re: New phone scam: People claiming they are from Microsoft

Post by Kaos Kid »

^^^^^
Seconded. Thanks!
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imallupinya
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Re: New phone scam: People claiming they are from Microsoft

Post by imallupinya »

Like Microsoft would ever call anyone to fix the computer. :P
If you call them they cant even understand let alone "Fix" the problem.
Even if they could they would want $300.00 Us bucks minimum.
I'm a Microsoft certified system builder, and i won't ever call them for help.
Though I do hope that someone gets enough info to catch them. There are alot of gullible guppy's out there and i would not want to see people get taken advantage of.
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