It’s not Microsoft on the phone!

Believe it or not, we still get calls at Orange County Computer from customers that report receiving a phone call from “Microsoft” about their Windows Operating System. This scam has been going on worldwide for over 8 years now. These cyber-criminals even have the nerve to call our offices every few months. Please note that Microsoft only calls you if you are a Microsoft Partner and have opened up a support ticket or have a dedicated sales support team you work with. So that basically eliminates at least 300 hundred million people in the United States alone… If you get a call from these cyber-criminals, I strongly urge you to just hang up. This is when you as a consumer stop and ask yourself, why would Microsoft be calling you? How does it benefit them by contacting me about my computer?

During this process,  I have directed people to contact their local FBI Cyber-crime division and file a report anticipating that further investigation can shut down the latest branch where these criminals are operating. We get calls from all over the country asking what to do based on how they have interacted with these “Microsoft Support Technicians”. Some have gone far enough to allow them to remote into their systems and basically  take whatever information they want along with that credit card payment they asked for. All one can do if they have been blindsided by one of these frauds is to disconnect their system from the Internet and take it to a Certified Tech Repair Center for evaluation. Any secure log ins for banking, email, credit cards or other personal financial data should be changed for your own protection. Additionally, we recommend cancelling the credit card that was provided to the scammers in the first place and assigning a fraud alert on all credit cards as a precautionary measure. It’s distressing to know that a single phone call that appeared to be helpful in nature can prove to be so detrimental to a victim’s finances and credit history.  We live in a tough world where ethics and morals continue to diminish to the point where we have to scrutinize the intentions of random phone calls and emails.

If you should receive one of these bogus phone calls, feel free to contact us at our Tech Repair Center at (949) 699-6619 and we will gladly answer any questions you may have.

For further reading about this Microsoft Scam, click here. View the Snopes blog about the Microsoft Scam by clicking here.