motorhomer
Free Member
- May 17, 2008
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- since 2005 (but 30 years caravanning)
I had a telephone conversation today. It was obvious to me that it was a scam, but might be less obvious to someone without computer experience. Thought it a good idea to warn as many people as possible.
The call went like this:
It was from an international number, number withheld.
The caller - a woman with an Indian accent - said she was from microsoft support and they had noticed that my machine had generated a lot of error reports recently.
I decided to play along at least for a while.
She said many websites put things on my computer without my permission and this makes it go slow.
She asked me to go to the computer. She then said press ctrl + r (clever this, its a windows shortcut that brings up a run box, but it makes them sound as if they know what they are talking about)
She asked me to type "inf unwanted" (in fact the word unwanted here does nothing, typing inf here just opens a folder called inf, which is a windows folder)
She asked me how many things were listed. I told her about 1100. There was an intake of breath, she said this was a huge number and my machine badly needed attention. (actually all rubbish, inf files are normal and harmless)
She then asked me to try ctrl + r again, which I did. She then asked me to type www.log2support.com , which I did.
After a bit more talk - all intended to make me worried - she asked me to click on a particular icon on the web page. As this was an executable file (.exe) I decided that this had gone far enough.
So I said I would not do this, I said I had worked with computers for 40 years, this was obviously a scam, do not call me again. She said "Oh!" and hung up.
I can only guess what might have happenned if I had clicked on the executable, my guess is that it really would have done damage to the machine, and that she would then have demanded money - possibly for a support contract - to fix it.
So if anyone rings caliming that your computer is slow, be very carefull, and have nothing to do with www.log2support.com. I looked this up, and it is a company registered in India, nothing (of course) to do with Microsoft.
The call went like this:
It was from an international number, number withheld.
The caller - a woman with an Indian accent - said she was from microsoft support and they had noticed that my machine had generated a lot of error reports recently.
I decided to play along at least for a while.
She said many websites put things on my computer without my permission and this makes it go slow.
She asked me to go to the computer. She then said press ctrl + r (clever this, its a windows shortcut that brings up a run box, but it makes them sound as if they know what they are talking about)
She asked me to type "inf unwanted" (in fact the word unwanted here does nothing, typing inf here just opens a folder called inf, which is a windows folder)
She asked me how many things were listed. I told her about 1100. There was an intake of breath, she said this was a huge number and my machine badly needed attention. (actually all rubbish, inf files are normal and harmless)
She then asked me to try ctrl + r again, which I did. She then asked me to type www.log2support.com , which I did.
After a bit more talk - all intended to make me worried - she asked me to click on a particular icon on the web page. As this was an executable file (.exe) I decided that this had gone far enough.
So I said I would not do this, I said I had worked with computers for 40 years, this was obviously a scam, do not call me again. She said "Oh!" and hung up.
I can only guess what might have happenned if I had clicked on the executable, my guess is that it really would have done damage to the machine, and that she would then have demanded money - possibly for a support contract - to fix it.
So if anyone rings caliming that your computer is slow, be very carefull, and have nothing to do with www.log2support.com. I looked this up, and it is a company registered in India, nothing (of course) to do with Microsoft.