Windows Support Scam - I was called by someone who said they were windows support and my computer was sending them warnings and messages!

Anonymous
2012-03-06T00:43:31+00:00

March 5, 2012

Windows Support Scam -

I was called at home by someone who said they were windows support and my computer was sending them warnings and messages!

They asked me to open Eventvwr (Event Viewer) to look at the errors. I was to count the errors and warnings.

Then they wanted me to go to www.support.me (don't go there BTW) and a microsoft certified technician would log into my computer and help me fix the problems.

Obviously a scam

I persisted on asking what company they were:

First they said "Windows Operating System"

Then "Customer Care"

And finally

"Softnet Communications for Windows"

They said the phone number was 209-813-0133 (don't call this BTW) and they were in the United States of California

They never could explain what the warnings and messages were.

Someone needs to stop these guys

--- Update ---

August 8 2015

They called again and gave me the same basic pitch.  This time a person with an Indian accent who called him self Kevin said that my computer was calling them because of a massive problem (infection by malware).  His company was Technical Support for Windows users and that the R&D group at Microsoft had a program that notified him of the problem.   After 5 min he wanted me to go to a web site (please do Not go here and click anything) www.121usahelp.com - which if you look at the web page source code will load TeamViewerQS.exe for windows or TeamViewerQS.bmg for Mac.  Do Not Fall for this scam they want you to pay them money and they load software on your computer that is Bad.  

Microsoft Please stop these types of scams - they are hurting less skilled users and older people with computers who don't know better.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Security and privacy

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2012-03-06T13:28:12+00:00

Hi,

Microsoft will not make unsolicited phone calls to help you with your computer. If you receive a phone call like this, hang up.

If you think you might be a victim of fraud, you can report it. For more information, see What to do if you've responded to a phishing scam.

**For your reference:**Don’t fall for phony phone tech support. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/securitytipstalk/archive/2010/03/09/don-t-fall-for-phony-phone-tech-support.aspx

Hope this information is helpful.

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Anonymous
2015-06-17T14:10:03+00:00

I had a call at 10:00 p.m. last night that my computer was "sending out error messages."  The woman had a very foreign accent and told  me she was from Windows Support.  I immediately went ballistic as I was in bed and told her it was 10:00 P.M.!  She said she knew it was late, but this was very, very important.  I then told her to take my number out of their system and to not call again and she said quite forcefully that they would continue to call me about the "problem."  I told her I was probably 10 times more intelligent than she was, I was very computer literate, there was nothing wrong with my computer, etc., etc., etc.  When I asked her where she was at, she replied "Windows Support," but when I told her I wanted to know what country she was calling from, she hung up!  I knew it was an obvious scam and called her quite a few choice names during the brief conversation.  Probably should have put her on "terminal hold" for the rest of the night!

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Anonymous
2015-02-14T22:31:45+00:00

@ climatechangeisreal

I have no idea why that link suddenly doesn't work anymore...

I've asked here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/feedback/forum/fdbk_commsite-feedback_other/why-is-official-msft-link-report-a-scam-broken/7c98c1f7-c788-4f53-8247-0d4b5e6815fb?tm=1423952532535 if somebody knows if it's a temporary glitch or something else...

Thanks for pointing it out :)

J

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-05-05T19:40:45+00:00

    On Mon, 5 May 2014 18:19:12 +0000, joe-garza77 wrote:

    Exactly the same happened to me today, April 4. I was already aware of the scam so left him on hold for 20 minutes whilst I pretended to boot up my (slow) PC. Then I hung up.  Good fun. BTW the number he gave me was UK 0208 123 7785 - Microsoft X. I'm calling BT to get the number blocked.  I got scammed on April 25.  I paid $140 to have system cleaned, today (05/05/14) I got called by the same caller "Windows Support," who said that, "the program they downloaded on April 25 was not good and they needed to remove the program and reload a revised program."  Also, they had credited my bank for the last purchase, and today the purchase would be the same with a discount.  The caller could not tell me the amount of discount.  I told him to go to **, and I hung up.  I called my bank and there was NO credit for $140.  A few minutes later I noticed he was still on my computer viewing my wife's bank statement that was on file.

    Besides their getting money from you for doing nothing of any value,

    if you let them into your computer, who knows what they did there or

    what confidential information they stole.

    So if you did, I highly recommend that you do both of the following

    immediately:

    1. Do a clean reinstallation of Windows.
    2. Change all of your passwords, especially any for banks or other

    financial sites.

    I'm going to add a suggestion to the change passwords thing. Make sure to use strong passwords. That means at least one capital and numbers. Don't use any numbers that can be linked to you or your wife's birthday or SS#. They've had access to your information. Choose a random number, what works for me is buying a candy bar, and using the first two or last two numbers below the bar code. It has no relation to anything personal and thus is hard to guess. Another thing I like to do to confuse people who might try to guess my passwords is I use player names of friends in MMO's as passwords. I'll use a friend who's name I've never used as an example: Allyanna. Add a couple numbers: Allyanna39. See how that would be a password most wouldn't come up with? Another place to get passwords is literature. Get a side character and add some numbers, and you have a password most won't guess.

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