Beware Of Computer Support Cold Calls
warns Peter Clarke of PC PAL
I am still seeing problems arise due to out of the blue ‘support’ cold calls and although I have successfully secured the PCs involved, prevention is better than cure!
A typical call involves an unsolicited telephone call from ‘engineers’ purporting to be from Microsoft or their ISP (Internet Service Provider) e.g. BT or TalkTalk. My customer was told that the ‘engineers’ have detected that their computer was running slowly and has several errors which they could help remove. The 'engineer' would direct my customer to look at files showing hundreds of ‘error’ messages and were told that for a small fee the ‘engineer’ would clean up the computer. To do this the 'engineer' just needed to take control of the computer to run some programs.
This all sounds very innocent but for the following:
- Microsoft & ISPs never make cold calls about technical problems with your computer
- Problems with your computer cannot be detected by anyone remotely unless you explicitly give them access
- The Windows System Log always contains many messages – this is quite normal and not proof that you have computer problems
These calls were undoubtedly a scam to get the user to give over their credit card details and to enable the scammers to install software that could potentially steal sensitive data such as bank details and passwords from the user’s computer.
So what should you do?:
- Never give up sensitive personal information to someone over the telephone (or Internet) unless you are certain that they are genuine
- Never give any information to someone who has cold called you
- Anyone calling up out of the blue and asking to connect to your PC should be refused
If you want to discuss this further or need any help following one of these calls, please don’t hesitate to call me.
