Fake Technical Support Phone Scams

[CTCREP]

A similar one is where you receive telephone call and are told you are about to be cut off due to an unpaid bill. pay £30 now or £118 if you delay and have to be reconnected. Just another scam. They try to prove to you that this is no scam by suggesting you try to make a call. You won't be able to because the person who originally phoned you has not hung up, then after a while they will then hang up and immediately ring you back claiming they are legitimate. Don't get caught.

[admin]

I wouldn't normally attempt to warn of all the Internet and phone scams doing the rounds - there are just too many of them - but this one seems to be suckering some people in and it is doing the rounds locally.

Last night one of my neighbours was phoned by a caller from India claiming to be his operating system provider and told him that they had identified that the security of his computer had been compromised by viruses. They talked him though browsing to their web site so that he could install some software and they could take control of his pc. They confirmed that he had a string of viruses and said that they could cure it remotely for a small fee - could he please provide his credit card details so that they could take payment. Fortunately at this point his wife became suspicious and made him hang up and switch the pc off. The guy even phoned back to find out what was wrong and tried to pick up where they had left off.

There is an article in this week's Stockport Times East (page 15) about a Marple lady who has received a number of these calls and if your search for "fake tech support phone scam" on Google you will find that there's a lot of it going on.

The "company" that phoned my neighbour called themselves iglobals online but there seem to be many other names being used.

If you receive a similar call from someone claiming to be your operating provider, Microsoft etc. etc. then do not follow their instructions and do NOT provide your credit card details. You may wish to try and obtain their details and report them to trading standards on 0300 123 2040.