Got a call from a young lady called "Michelle" (speaks with an Indian accent) today. She claimed to be from a the British National Computer company (a Microsoft Support partner) and the reason why she called was that my computer had been sending out error messages logged by Microsoft and that she will help me solve the problem.
Being my usual suspicious self (Sapi [my BFF] would disagree and say "psychic") started asking:
What is your Actual Company name? Answer: Redout IT Solution Company
Where are you located? Answer: Based in London
What is your telephone no? Answer 03300010981 (London starts with 020)
suggesting some non-geographical (unknown) location
"Michelle" was quite insistent that she was here to help me and that this was not a sales call and that my computer was indeed suffering from errors etc. She even said I can call the number and talk to her manager if I didn't believe her. If you ask my opinion, she seems a bit to harrassed / over-eager to help.
To prove that there was an error, she asked me to check my computer's administrative consold and look at the error messages - to which she "kindly guided me to.
Lo and behold there were 13000+ error messages. "See I am not kidding you - your computer is having problems and I am here to help". Now you need to click on the start menu and type in www.antiviruslive.in (don't click on the link) in the "search programs and files" box and press enter. What this did was to open an Internet page to the website. Hint: website address xxx.in is in India.
All this while I was running a background check on the details she gave me andlooking for other peoples comments about scams. A few came out.
Me being my careful self, hovered my mouse over the links - true enough - if you see the addresses the links point to in the status bar at the bottom, it will show something like http:/www.antiviruslive.in/xxx.exe (don't click on the link)
DO NOT EVEN CLICK ON THESE LINKS. You don't know what malicious software they will install on your PC.
At this point - I said to her (summarised): "The links on the website points to executable files. I'm sorry I do not trust you or your company. Goodbye." and hung up the phone.
The phone rang again about 10 minutes later. No one spoke and then they hung up but I could tell they were the same company. How to tell? They sound distant and you can hardly hear them talking. There is a lot of inteference in the quality of the line (cheap VOIP).
Although I suspect it's more a scam to get you to pay for support to keep your PC error free. There are a lot of people posting videos / recordings on youtube.
Some of them even lead the scammers on - "LAYAN je" but don't do anything they ask you to - waste their time.
Important Note: Microsoft will never call you or appoint any company to call you to offer fix errors. This would usually be done through software updates or via solutions posted on microsoft's knowledge base.
Check this blog out:
http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/02/scamming-scammers-catching-virus-call.html
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