A guest post by Ollie

Ollie says he rarely engages with scam callers, but last week he did.

“I had that scam caller that purports to be from Microsoft and telling you that you have a virus on your PC. Ok, so I thought let’s talk:

Me – “Oh so I have a virus and you really are Microsoft calling me, wow, thank you. Where are you actually ringing from?”

“the USA”

Me –  “ha, yes I guessed that Microsoft is a huge American company, but where, what address in America”

“Los Angeles”

Me – “OK, Los Angeles, I was just wondering what address”

“I don’t know just in USA”

Me – “You don’t know where you are working from?”

“Microsoft in America”

Me – “Yes I know, you said, but can you tell me the street and building in Los Angeles”

“No, I don’t know”

Me – “You don’t know where you actually are in Los Angeles. Are you sure you are in Los Angeles? Not perhaps Seattle where Microsoft are based?”

“No”

Me – “I think you are trying to scam people and I do not want to talk to you anymore. I will just wish you and your company lots of BAD luck, bye”

 

By the way I only did this because I saw his caller ID showing starting with a number 1 so I believed it would cost them to hang on………

 

This is a common scam – do not believe a caller who tells you that your computer has a virus or has been hacked or is being used for illegal purposes or anything similar. They are just calling randomly in the hope of finding someone with a computer who will fall for the lies and then end up paying the scammer to fix non existent problems.