I was working at a company once and my phone rang. The caller ID said “Tech Support” and the voice said “This is Raul from Microsoft Tech Support. We have determined there is a virus on your computer. I will connect to it and fix the problem.” This was a surprise since I had never gotten this kind of scam call before.
However, I wanted to see how this worked so I played along. “Oh no! Really? My computer has a virus. I don’t want to lose anything. What do I have to do?” I asked in a concerned voice.
“No problem I can help make things better,” Raul said. “We just need to connect to your computer and if you go to http://join.me and put in the number I give you, I can connect to your computer.”
At that point, we got disconnected because my phone had been having issues that the outsourced VOIP was addressing. Immediately I got a call back from Raul and he didn’t miss a beat. “Let’s continue to go to that site.”
I thought this is interesting. Even when he is disconnected he calls back. So I thought I would test this. I said, “Sure just wait a second while I save my files.” Then I hung up on him. He called back and acted as though nothing had happened.
Then he said that their system said I might immediately lose files if he didn’t connect right now, my phone acted up and disconnected him again. I thought certainty he isn’t going to call back. He did!
At this point, it had taken some time and I had people to help. I told Raul that I was tired of my junky computer and I was going to just throw it away and buy a Mac and I didn’t need his services. I hung up and he didn’t call back.
One of the things that gave this scam away is that when I was talking to him I could hear the other agents in the background. It was obvious they were working from a call center hoping to prey on people’s ignorance. What also was a tip-off is that it claimed to be from Microsoft. Microsoft has never called me. It was also a sign when the caller ID said something other than Microsoft. Finally, no company is going to remotely monitor your machine for free and offer to fix it for a fee.
Scammers want your money, but you are too smart to fall for this.