Two articles related to the same problem:-
From PC Tips for Seniors www.pcforseniors.co.uk.
Microsoft Telephone Scammer Forced to Hang Up
Its perpetrator has finally been caught and sentenced.
Unlike most scams, which start with an email message, this one revolved around an unexpected telephone call. The caller would claim to be working for Microsoft and would try to convince you that your PC was infected by countless viruses. Somehow, without alerting you to these problems, your PC had contacted Microsoft, and Microsoft was kindly phoning you at its own expense to sort them out.
If you hadn’t already hung up by this point, the caller would try to ‘prove’ his case by directing you to an area of Windows containing a long and worryingly-technical list of items. These, he’d claim, were all the viruses that had infected your PC. If you were convinced by this, you’d be encouraged to hand over remote control of your PC to the caller so that he could ‘fix it’ – but only after parting with payment for this service.
Now, with a bit of luck, this scam has been shut down. You can read the full story on the BBC’s website at www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26818745, but the upshot is that the scammer has been caught, sentenced and fined. It’s not much of a sentence (or much of a fine, although the court costs help to inflate it), but it should ensure that he doesn’t do it again.
Of course, there’s no knowing whether this scam was all the work of one man, or whether there are others still at large and still operating the same racket. In case there are, remember how it works and be sure to hang up if you receive a phone call making similarly outrageous claims.
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Earlier this year telephone calls were received purporting to be coming from Windows advising that the computer of the person called was putting out messages that were affecting a large number of other computers. It was requested that the person receiving these calls be talked through putting a programme on their computer to remedy the fault. Persons had agreed and an extortionate amount of money was demanded for this service. This was a scam and computers had to be taken to a computer shop to have the computers repaired.
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Little computer tip in case you did not know The difference between http and https... the little thing that means a lot.It's all about security - HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transport Protocol.
The S (big surprise)stands for "Secure". If you visit a website or webpage, and look at the address in the web browser, it will likely begin with the following: http://. This means that the website is talking to your browser using the regular 'unsecure' language. In other words, it is possible for someone to "eavesdrop" on your computer's conversation with the website. If you fill out a form on the website, someone might see the information you send to that site.
This is why you never ever enter your credit card number in a http website!
But if the web address begins with https:// that basically means your computer is talking to the website in a secure code that no one can eavesdrop on. You understand why this is so important, right?
If a website ever asks you to enter your credit card information, you should automatically look to
see if the web address begins with https://
If it doesn't, there's no way you should ever enter sensitive information like a credit card number, PIN, Social Security #, etc.
Be very careful
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