Tech Support Scams do not appear to be new, but I wanted to share this with everyone as a reminder that there are unscrupulous people out there. Here is the sequence of events that happen to me this week.
On Friday (4/26/13) I received a call from someone that that claimed to be from the Windows Resource team. They claimed my computer was corrupted and was downloading dangerous and unauthorized files from the internet. They told me not to worry that they would help me get rid of it. I asked them if they were Microsoft employees and they told me that were an independent company hired to provide tech support for Windows. I also asked him how he knew that my computer was corrupt and he responded that windows computers broadcast to them when they have errors and when things like this happen. Based on the accent and the latency in the phone call, I knew I was not talking to anyone in the US. Intrigued as to where this would go, I played along.
The first thing they had me do is to go to the run line and launch the event viewer. Playing dumb, I went along with it when they asked me to read some of messages in the event viewer. After a few lines the guy told me that these were not messages but rather warnings that my computer was corrupted and again told me not to worry.
When I asked him what to do next he replied that since my computer was corrupted he would turn it over to an engineer and that they would help me clear this up and fix it. A few seconds later, another guy with the same accent got on the phone and proceeded again to tell me that my computer was corrupted and that he would help clear it up for me. I asked him again how he knew this and got the same answer. Wanting to still play along, I asked him what I should do next. He had me go to the run line again and this time he wanted me to type “www.ammyy.com” into the run line (which of course I did not do). At that point, I decided to stop the charades and confronted the caller. Seconds later, he abruptly hung up on me.
The Friday call was actually the second time as they had called on Wednesday from an Oregon based number and that time I had just hung up on them. Since they were calling a Google voice number, I blocked that number so that they would not call again. On Friday when they called back, they called from an unknown number with no caller ID.
This kind of stuff makes me crazy and although we all hear about from time to time, it is downright aggravating when it happens. I do not doubt they will try again and I would hate anyone being victimized by these guys. Please share this scam with everyone you know so that they do not fall victim of this crap and potentially get ripped off.
