remote access hacking,

[margb]

Feeling a bit of an idiot today. Been remote access hacked. These people told me they were my provider and that they were going to have to delete my internet and sort my files as they all had been corrupted. Eventually asked for a small amount of money. They said the only company that could provide safety was microsoft asked if it could be put on my a/c. Kept asking if they were my provider and they put a box up on the,side with what was am certain appeared as a genuine website. I gave them a debit card no. Which of course was declined. But am scared everyone else has been affected.

[Sarah]

Thanks for the warning Margaret its nice to be aware..

[bobnetau]

I got a call like that a few years ago, funnily enough my comp. had been playing up at the time. The alarm bells rang for me and I told them I would get my son, who was a policeman to come to the phone and they could tell him what to do. Needless to say they hung up. Hope wee white lies don't count against me too much at the end.

[michaelm]

These type of 'scammers' often sound very plausible, and anyone not aware of this con could be caught off guard by them.
In fact, if it wasn't for topics like this one I may have been a victim myself only yesterday.
I answered a call from someone claiming to be from my ISP (internet service provider)
A chap with an Indian sounding accent - nothing unusual there then. I also had a wee bit of trouble understanding him at first - again not unusual these days.

He proceeded to tell me my pc was causing a lot of bother back at their main server by sending out large amounts of error messages and that there was some type of malicious code on my pc that was doing this. He said they could send someone out to fix things, but as there were many other folk affected by the same problem it might be some time before that could be done.
Of course by this time I was very suspicious, but I decided to let him carry on talking.

He then hinted that my internet service might possibly be suspended if the problem continued - all part of the con.
Right on cue, he suggested that he could guide me through things online and fix the problem there and then. It became obvious to me then that he was going to try and get me to agree to giving him remote access to my pc, or he was trying to con me into downloading something that would wreak havoc on it.

Eventually, when I managed to get a word in, I told him I'd seen reports online and in newspapers about folk being scammed in this way ..... He then hung up before I even managed to finish the sentence.

In spite of the above, remote access can be a good thing at times as I've had that type of help before from one or two trusted sources, (my pc security company for instance ) with no problems at all, but that was only after I'd noticed a problem myself and then contacted them direct from the software programme I'd downloaded.

Good that neither yourself or bobnetau found yourselves out of pocket there margb.

[John Donnelly]

Beware not only of scammers.
The other week I had a problem. I could not send or receive emails. I contacted Microsoft on their official helpdesk, (thus it was definately not a scammer). I explained and he gave me two options. A one-off fee for remote help to make a correction, or an annual subscription. On asking, I was told the one-off fee would be 85 Euros; (I kid you not). I declined politely and rung off.
I have a pal who is well informed on PC's and he told me it could be the result of a recent new update, and that MS would soon notice the problem and issue a new update to put it right. There had indeed been a recent update.
Within 3 to 4 days there was another update and everything worked again. So I just saved myself 85 Euros.
It aint for nothing that Bill Gates is the richest man on the planet.

JD.