Tech Outpost

[silver36113]

has any body had phone call saying they are from Microsoft and warning that computer is being attacked by a trogen virus. When asked where they got number they seemed to know all my details from the ip address. Very disconcerting. 

[edit: changed subject to better reflect thread topic]

[SendOfJive Norton Fighter]

Hi silver36113,

Thousands of others have received similar cold phone calls.  They are scams that attempt to get you to allow the caller to remote access your computer and to trick you into providing a credit card number to the scammers by agreeing to purchase their service.  Microsoft and its affiliates do not call you like this.  They do not know all of your details from your IP address, but they do have clever ways of figuring certain things out by your responses to their questions.  I hope you hung up on them.

[silver36113]

glad to hear I am not alone and yes I hung up on the call, for interest the caller display on the phone comes up with a number like   "111111" not sure how many "ones"

Silver.

[bleeper24 Super Spam Squasher Mobile Master (Norton Mobile Users Discussion Forum)]

Hi silver36113

                          You wrote----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

glad to hear I am not alone and yes I hung up on the call

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Well done for hanging up on these pests !

As SOJ said ......they rely on gaining the confidence of the people they contact by using the "scare tactic " of making out that they are Microsoft agents and are concerned about a trojan they have magically detected ! They then try to extract other private data and use it introduce their own brand of infection onto your system !

Microsoft will never contact customers in this manner....nor will any other reputable company Always err on the "safe side " and ignore these scams ....If you have any doubts....just pop back here and ask .....There's always someone here to help .....Keep safe.........

                                                                                                                                                                         Ed