Worrying

[bixy]

This morning we had a phone call in English from someone working for a company whose name I didn't catch. He told me that our computer was infected and that he would help me clear it. He took me to the Events Viewer and indeed there were some red and yellow warnings in the security log. He knew the number of our connection (INS?) and of course our phone number. I was very suspicious and even more so when he took me to a website LogMeIn where I was to download a programme. At this point I put a stop to it, refused to go any further and hung up. I subsequently checked out LogMeIn and it seems it involves a programme that allows remote control of a computer. Presumably this is what he was going to do. I also ran a scan using our anti-virus software which found that there were no infections. I also looked a again in the Events Viewer and found that all the red and yellow warnings had gone!

Any comments/advice much appreciated. I'm particularly worried that this chap had our details - how would he get hold of them?

Patrick

[Rabbie]

You will find several threads in this section about this scam.  I had one myself yesterday. I told him I was a retired software engineer and I was aware of this scam. He promptly hung up.

[bixy]

Yes, I now see that this is a well known scam that has been reported here before. It is very convincing (or possibly I'm very naive). Thank goodness I stopped when it got to the critical bit.

[Benjamin]

The simplest way of dealing with this scam is to tell them that you don't have a computer.    [:D]

[Théière]

Just to add, Log me in, is a legitimate piece of handy software and the company are aware of these threats.

 

[AnOther]

Write out 100 times:

Nobody genuine will ever phone me to tell me that something is wrong with my computer !

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

I've had the same phone call over here in the States.

I recommended the caller to use Avast, as it's free :)

[Chancer]

What is a bit concerning is that the calls are very targetted even down to ones mother tongue when in a foreign country, I recently started getting these from an Indian "Hi there I'm Rick!" with an American accent, I hung up and blocked the number but a week later same call, same guy on another number, they use a random number generator to overcome the blocked lines, why I cant understand because to me when someone blocks my number they dont want to hear from me, at least thats what most females do [:D][:D]

Anyway he spoke to me in English and even pronoiunced my name correctly hence getting past my first line of defence (French cold callers never do) I replied in French and maintained it he got more and more flustered and started shouting very loud and slowly "DO   YOU   SPEAK   ENGLISH   ????"

It was a very satisfying conversation because I really abused him with the words that normally I would never use but sadly have learnt by others using them on me [:(]

[suein56]

[quote user="Chancer"]What is a bit concerning is that the calls are very targetted even down to ones mother tongue when in a foreign country, [/quote]

The phone line for our previous home was in my name and was in the phone directory for a while before I learnt how to get it removed. My surname could be French but no way could my first name be remotely considered to be French. Even so the call I got from 'Microsoft' was in French, so there must be rafts of these con artists out there all giving the scam a go, in whatever language they think might work.

Sue