"Microsoft Support Call Scam"(Event Viewer)

Anonymous
2014-08-13T14:31:05+00:00

I received a phone call today from a private caller with an Indian accent saying he was from Microsoft Support.

He told me my computer was constantly sending windows errors to Microsooft and we needed to fix it.

He went on to ask me how many computers I have in my home and said all of them had to be fixed.

He had me go on my computer, type: EVENTVEWR in the box and look in options,all of this sounded strange as he kept asking me what i was seeing on my screen at the time.

I went on to ask him to hold and googled "Microsoft Support Call Event Viewer" in which I found a blog with lots of people having the same thing happen to them(http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-security/phone-call-scam-received-call-from-a-technician/6ed2b99c-20ff-468b-a69b-aec78b93f287?page=22&tm=1407939072026 )

I then hung up the phone and he kept calling back(4 times)and this time it was a local number(15129633287), of which I googled immediately, bringing up a list of local numbers on a list with a foreign language as the titles.

I then decided to call Microsoft Support directly to confirm it was a scam and was informed that Microsoft never makes calls without a customer request and that Microsoft has its own set of programs it uses to fix computers instead of "event viewer".

I was told I could submit a post on here to let Microsoft know of the Incident, which is the purpose of this post..in addition to help anyone else from having to go through the experience many people have had with this issue.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Security and privacy

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-03-27T20:38:50+00:00

    They don't have access to your personal information. They do random dialing.  Most households these days have a PC of some sort, so it's easy to make it sound like the calls are specific to you.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-03-27T23:30:12+00:00

    Thank You Jim. I don't understand how they knew my name but I did make a report with Dell.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-05-06T11:33:19+00:00

    i have had phone calls from people claiming to be from microsoft windows it was an indian woman saying i had been comprimised and my laptop had been hacked, i gave them control of my pc and they done loads of stuff to it,installed ADV support on my home screen and they have been calling me non-stop for a payment, today i told them don't worry my friends giving me the money in a couple of days and they said ok can i have the bank card details etc to process? i became suspicious about this and googled it, and lots of stuff came up about scams and the same indian woman saying your computer has been comprimised. I have contacted Microsoft and spoke to a lady on the phone,she said it is a bad line can I have your number to call you back, they still haven't called me. I still have the scam man calling me pestering me non stop for a payment. Any ideas to help me please would be appreciated?

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-05-06T13:14:25+00:00

    Do not take any more calls from these people. They have nothing to do with Microsoft or Internet Explorer. I finally got through to someone at Dell ( who was also out-sourced) in the Fraud Department who took a report. You may try calling Dell or Microsoft and insisting on making a Consumer Fraud complaint.

    This is a link to Microsoft that addresses this issue >http://blogs.microsoft.com/cybertrust/2014/09/18/how-to-report-the-microsoft-phone-scam/<

    Also the number that these scam artist are calling from appears to be a MetroPCS number. I am thinking of reporting these scam artist to the Metro PCS Carrier.

    Keep us informed.

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-05-06T15:43:36+00:00

    It's rather a common scam. I think a few years back my mum got a call from one of those scammers, fortunately she recognised it as suspicious. Report such scams to your local law enforcement.

    Event Viewer is a program included with Windows though. It lets you see the logs made by Windows and various programs and can be useful for troubleshooting computer problems, and opening it won't do any harm. There will often be warnings and errors that aren't important, and the scam probably relies on trying to convince you that one of them needs "fixing".

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