Securiy Scam?

[Dudley]

I had an International phone call this morning and the caller said he was from Comurix.com who have been advised by Microsoft that my Windows computer has been shown to have more than one registration (or some such) on the World server and I should take action as someone may have cloned it. The caller was not English and the line wasn't great so I may have got some of this wrong. He said I should go on the Comurix website and quote a 20 digit string of numbers and letters beginning 888DCA60FCOA etc etc and they would take it from there. Is this some sort of scam please guys?

[Orderlimit]

Yes a very common scam, dont engage whatsoever.

[frugalfred]

It's a scam, well-known. Ignore. Microsoft will will never telephone you, nor will they give your details to anyone else.

[Bazile]

errm - yes

[jno]

never respond to anyone ringing you to say your computer has a problem.

[SlackAlice]

I love responding to them, run them round in circles for 5-10 minutes, then say no thankyou.

[RiskyBiscuit]

Definitely a scam! Just like me winning the Nigerian lottery yesterday!

[sidkid]

Just googled 888DCA and found this.....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/mar/01/microsoft-virus-scam-continues

[rojash]

Just think about it:
There are around 1 billion computers on the Net.
Over 90% run Windows.
Is it really likely that MS would (a) want to, or (b) be capable of, monitoring over 900,000,000 computers in case an individual one had a problem?

[heathfield]

Microsoft does just that, Rojash. How do you think Windows updates are automatically downloaded to your computer? (If you haven't disabled that facility, that is.)

[jno]

yeah, but they don't detail someone to ring me up and talk me through installing it myself, heathfield.

At least they haven't yet.

[Dudley]

Thanks to all who responded and confirmed what I thought. When I get dodgy emails suggesting there's a virus or some such on it's way, I always Google the message and it's always a scam. Why do people forward them on clogging up the system without checking it out?. Much appreciated, great advice from AB as always.

[TWR]

Take these calls the same way as someone saying you have won 100000, On a Lotto you have not entered Dudley, Put the phone down.