Beware - call from windows service center

My OH kept telling me a guy from Windows Service Center keeps ringing wanting her to switch on the PC and guide her through a process because she had downloaded malware. She kept telling him she has no idea about computers and ring back another time when I was home.
I just popped home for lunch and here we go. A guy with a very strong asian accent tells me that the motherboard of my PC is in danger. He asks me to switch on the PC. First I ask him which company he is calling from and he says "Windows Service Center", then I ask him where he got my name and phone number from and he says "From your service provider".
At that point I knew he was up to no good as BT would not give Microsoft my details as it's against the Data Protection Act, but thought I trap him.

Ok, I say, which PC should I switch on ?
He says "the older one". I ask which one of the older ones, I have three. He insists it's the oldest one, the one with Windows XP on it. I tell him I can't, it's broken. He asks me to switch the other older one on, the one with XP on it. I tell him I don't have Windows XP, he says it must be Windows Vista then, I tell him I don't have Vista neither. Then he says it must be the new one, he thinks the messages they are getting are from the new PC, I tell him thats fine I go switch it on.
He asks me to click start, I say, sorry no start button. He struggles and gets himself into a muddle when I ask him where this start button is supposed to be on a Linux machine. Then he starts making excuses that he must have dialed the wrong number.
I pin him down and tell him he has my name and number from my service provider, so how can I be the wrong person ?
He struggles for an excuse and suddenly the line goes dead. 1471 tells me the caller withheld their number. How come I am not surprised about that ?

No idea what he wanted to do to my PC and what he was trying to sell me, but if somebody from a "Windows Service Center" rings you, tell them to take you off their calling list and never ring you again. They have to comply as it's against the law otherwise.

Thought I warn people as if you have no idea about PC's you can easily believe what he was saying. My OH may have done, but I deal with everything PC related....

Cheers for that, will pass message on to wife and kids.

Gotta be gullable believing such rubbish:lol:

dad got a call from them the other day, saying they had been receiving fault reports (and he has been sending them) from his pc and they wanted to check his firewall configuration. this would require him switching off his firewall to enable them to access his system.

that is wat this call is all about, once you have allowd them that access, even after your firewall is back on, they can still access your machine, and get every piece of info they want, like bank logins etc. dad said to call back later as he didnt understand it enough and would get his son to look at it. nobody ever called back, however given that one of his sons is a microsoft qualified engineer and and another has 30 years experience as a computer engineer...... well you get the picture!! the caller would have been told were to get off!!!

I had a same call yesterday an asian gentleman saying he was from the computer maintenance centre and that my computer had been sending them faults.

Straight away alarm bells starting going off, I hung up on him.

I have to say that I don't normally answer the phone when the international shows up or withheld, but was waiting for a phone yesterday and just assumed that it was that.

My hubby got a call the day before yesterday and after leading them down the garden path a bit he was acting as if he hadnt a clue what they were on about then he told them we didnt have a computer, the line then went dead- suprisingly!

I got to the Windows Vista part of Stefan's post and was thinking, "I bet telling them he uses Linux would get rid of them!" :)

If I were to get any of these calls I'll just tell them I don't have a PC... I'll also tell them I don't have a phone and hang up... I love messing with cold callers.

One once asked me what I earned in a year, so I asked him to tell me his salary first. Caller mumbled and hung up.

iv had that call..........twice! :roll: Cant knock em for trying eh!

I let them say their bit cos i love catching them out. First mistake they made, they said they were calling from Windows Service Centre, i asked them to repeat where they were calling from and he said "microsoft for stephen hawking" i say.......dont you mean bill gates? line goes dead! [lol]

Are these rascals up to their nonsense again?

I posted about this back in february http://forum.caithness.org/showthread.php?t=100085

It's almost dissapointing that scammers can't actually get what they are talking about right :roll: