Just had a phone call from "Microsoft"

[squarebear]

I just spent the last ten minutes on the phone to someone claiming to be from Microsoft. He claimed my computer was sending out error messages to Microsoft, so I played along pretending to go into the event viewer and typing in what he told me.

He asked what I could see on my screen and so I told him I had a picture of my daughter. He asked if I run Windows, so I said yes, there is a big window in my room. Great fun! I would recommend it to anyone. In the end he told me his time was too valuable and hung up. First time I have had a cold caller hang up on me!

[dotty.]

well done for holding your nerve and not telling him to get lost.

[chrissa1]

Ha ha. Good for you squarebear.

[jno]

I bet that was Bill Gates. You probably cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of time.

[squarebear]

If it was Bill Gates, he had a strong Bombay accent :-)

[888sally888]

Love it!

[Baldric]

'He' rang me a few days ago, I wasn't even on line at the time, however we passed a happy few minutes talking about what was on screen until he kinda lost interest!

[squarebear]

I have been waiting weeks for one of these since I heard the scam going round. My eyes lit up when he started with "I am calling from Microsoft".

[whiskeryron]

absolutely brill squarebear, that's given me the best laugh for a longtime.

WR.

[rojash]

"First time I have had a cold caller hang up on me!"

Happens all the time here - you just have to answer the phone in English, and they're gone.

[smurfchops]

Just say, 'hang on, my husband/wife's just coming, they can help you' and let them listen to Jeremy Kyle or whatever really loudly, until they hang up. I love it.

[rockyracoon]

I keep hoping that I'll get one of these calls, all I get are poxy ambulance chasers.

[johnny37]

You could complain to Microsoft. We get these calls, I think because my wife has a Microsoft website. Microsoft appear to have some kind of serviice link to companies or individual Microsoft qualified engineers who wish to be alerted that there is a possible opportunity of doing business. I assume they pay for this service. They all have Indian or Sri Lankan accents (not a bad thing!). On one occasion we were having a few probs and were called by someone who identified themselves as PC Help Online. It may be someone working from their bedroom for all we know. My wife asked them lots of questions and looked them up on the web. I cant remember but she may have even contacted Microsoft. My wife nervously agreed to let them do a cleanup and after they were finished she changed all her sign-ons and passwords. The system worked great after that so we paid £100 for them to be our preferred contact for one year. When you are running a business you cannot afford for your website to be down and £2 a week is not much to pay to have help on tap. We have needed to use them a couple of times since. We have agreed a code with them so that timewasters can be dealt with quickly.

BTW I think PCWorld have a similar service for the same price. We used to use them but were not impressed.

[rockyracoon]

Wow, Johnny, I always presumed they were a scam as how would they know your phone number, but then if your wife has dealings with them then I suppose it is legit. It definitely wouldn't be if they rang me.

[squarebear]

The ones that phone you up out of the blue ARE a scam and only want access to your computer to upload their spyware.

[rojash]

Sorry johnny37, but that's total nonsense.
Do you really think that MS have the means (let alone the resources) to monitor 1.25 billion PCs for problems?

[boxtops]

I agree with rojash - MS can't see everyone's computers, how would they know something's the matter with yours?

[Maydup]

Well done SB, I do hope I'm in when they ring me, I'll do my best to string them along for as long as I can on the subjects of (bay) windows and (fly) screens.

[wildwood]

The sad thing is that there are still many people falling for these scams. The usual thing is that you have a virus and they will fix your computer remotely for a fee.

These victims are mostly relatively newbies to computer and stop using it because of this, missing out on a world of information and wonderment.

[rhythmcrazy]

Place posts on Facebook, Twitter and in emails to warn friends. The more people you can reach and warn about it, the beter!

[vivandorron]

I think I might welcome a call from alleged 'Microsoft' and then shoot a line to the caller.

" Oh yes, I have been in touch with MS and they said they would arrange for me to be contacted by a technician. However, they did give me a password to make sure that I was dealing with their appointed representative and suggested that I request the First, Forth and Sixth letters, together with a code number."

Ron.