I thought I was fairly smart dang hackers almost proved me wrong. So last night while browsing BYC hackers busted into my PC and flashed me with a WARNING popup window. It says " Your PC has a virus and malware" and then to make it legit they called my home phone. I was kind of mad because it was 11:45 pm EST. I'm thinking who the heck is calling this late at night. So I answer the phone and this heavily Indian accented man says "Hi I"m from windows technical support" your PC has just shown us a "Virus and malware error message" I'm like yeah how did you know that?
Then they tried to sell me virus protection software. I explained I already have it, "well it is not working very well' I almost believed him. I immediately shutdown my dsl and disconnected my phone. I then ran a pc scandisk on windows, all good. After that I ran a scan on my McAfee virus protection software, again good.
So today I tried logging on to the internet and my browser was down. The sorry jokers called again today while I was gone. I came in the house and my wife is getting angry with someone on the phone and I said who is it? Here it is the people from "Windows Technical Support" you talk to them. They were about two minutes from convincing my wife to give them the credit card information so they could fix our PC. I told them NO I already have virus protection software, "Well our servers have detected a problem with your PC", starting at $69.95 and going up to $169.00 they would sell me a protection package. Once again I told them NO I already have it and hung up the phone. Ten minutes latter the sorry joker called back. I again told them NO, don't call me back.
So I called my virus protection software company and they said " We never call customers; they call us, that is a SCAM and they were shopping for your credit card number. So they run a check on my PC and found an IP address the hackers had back doored my PC and closed my MSN browser link. They managed to get my phone number but supposedly nothing more.
Moral to the story "Windows Technical Support" does NOT call you, you call them. They almost conviced my wife and I to give them the CC#. Something just was not right about the whole deal the guy argued with me rather convincingly that they were my legit PC virus software company. The caller ID had Unknown Number that was the first red flag. They almost conned me.
Then they tried to sell me virus protection software. I explained I already have it, "well it is not working very well' I almost believed him. I immediately shutdown my dsl and disconnected my phone. I then ran a pc scandisk on windows, all good. After that I ran a scan on my McAfee virus protection software, again good.
So today I tried logging on to the internet and my browser was down. The sorry jokers called again today while I was gone. I came in the house and my wife is getting angry with someone on the phone and I said who is it? Here it is the people from "Windows Technical Support" you talk to them. They were about two minutes from convincing my wife to give them the credit card information so they could fix our PC. I told them NO I already have virus protection software, "Well our servers have detected a problem with your PC", starting at $69.95 and going up to $169.00 they would sell me a protection package. Once again I told them NO I already have it and hung up the phone. Ten minutes latter the sorry joker called back. I again told them NO, don't call me back.
So I called my virus protection software company and they said " We never call customers; they call us, that is a SCAM and they were shopping for your credit card number. So they run a check on my PC and found an IP address the hackers had back doored my PC and closed my MSN browser link. They managed to get my phone number but supposedly nothing more.
Moral to the story "Windows Technical Support" does NOT call you, you call them. They almost conviced my wife and I to give them the CC#. Something just was not right about the whole deal the guy argued with me rather convincingly that they were my legit PC virus software company. The caller ID had Unknown Number that was the first red flag. They almost conned me.
