Computer Scam ...

Not my typical kind of post I'm sure but wanting to make people aware, tell your family and friends not to fall for this.

I have been called by these people before but didn't go along with it, last night I had a bit of a mess with their minds.
So the scam goes like this ... you get a call from someone who tells you they work for a company authorised or accredited by Microsoft there are problems with the windows operating system and you need to go and turn on your computer so they can remotely check it ( on behalf of Microsoft )

The initial caller was a woman.
In answer to my questions she assured me she was from a legit company, that she would give me the details of after checking my 'most probably terribly infected system' so I could verify the company was genuine.
She had sneakily asked questions in a assertive manner such as ' There are problems with the windows operating systems, you are using windows is that correct?' She assured me they were not selling anything and when I asked said they did not want any information from me. She went back to a Script and repeated key sections to me several times.
She asked me if we were running XP, Windows 7 or something else and kept checking I was at the computer. I questioned her to a point of frustration that she handed me over to her qualified authorised Microsoft technician who was much more straight to the point. When I started saying I didn't know what the Operating System was and asking how could I tell is when she handed me over with a faint urrgh kind of sound.

He told me that the computers in my area, I questioned Geographical area? He said Yes.
I asked him where that would be and he said City of ( insert suburb name  ) clearly demonstrating that they were from some random call centre, definitely not around here anywhere.

Wow really? All the computers in my suburb are affected with malicious cookies in my hardware and software ... ??? LOL They used so many Internet and computer terms that my head was spinning. I asked her if I could just delete the malicious cookies but ... NO. They have to access the system.

Seriously if there are cookies doing damage in my hard drive they are most likely the ones the kids physically tried to put in there.

I had no intention of doing what he told me to do, I am no computer expert but knew when he told me to click on the start icon and go to run, that this was NOT a good phone call by these smooth Indian operators.

So I played very Dumb claiming I could not find run and didn't know how to etc so he talked me through clicking on the start icon and then told me to type E - for echo, V - for Victor .... to get EVENT VWR.

I wrote in on some paper and repeated it back to him a few times.

Then he said something like ' in the window that opened ' ... I cut him off with there's no new window on my screen. He got impatient and tense and said PRESS the enter key!!

So next time they call I think I'll say the window that popped up has a message ... It says ... 'You are not permitted to go any further with this phishing scam, hang up the phone immediately!'

Here are some links I found about this scam.
techworld and Microsoft answers

I'm most concerned about people who know little about the computers systems in there homes getting bamboozled by the confidant manner and technical terms of these people.

Always be wary.