If you receive a phone call or pop up in your browser from anyone claiming to be from Microsoft technical support (or ANY other tech support) or security service, please do not speak with them. Microsoft has even posted an article to this effect, saying they never initiate phone calls or emails requesting financial info from you:
100% of my experience with these forms of initiated contact claiming to help people with computer problems have been scams. And I’ve seen LOTS of these in the last couple of years, as horror stories abound.
Sometimes a pop-up in your browser will tell you of a virus infection and that you must call the number they provide or you face imminent catastrophe. Some of these messages are even audio messages you can hear! You may indeed have a malware infection, but calling the provided number will NEVER make things better, because such tactics are always initiated by scammers—and not legitimate tech support.
Suppose you need to download a driver for your new printer. So you search the web and find what you think is the right driver. Before you click one of the results, make sure it’s from the official web site, such as HP, which will always have “hp.com” somewhere in the address:
Same goes for looking for a phone number to contact true customer support/service. If you don’t know where the phone number came from, and you cannot verify it came from the company’s official site, it’s probably a scam number and they will eventually ask for information from you that could cost you lots of money.
And in fact, these scams are getting even more subtle.
Recently a client contacted me having received an invoice by email for services he didn’t recognize. So he contacted the people behind this invoice and they requested access to his computer to straighten some things out. This is what they always request. This was a scam phishing request designed to get into contact with potential victims.
Whatever you do, NEVER LET ANYONE ACCESS YOUR COMPUTER unless you know them and trust them. Doing so can cost you a lot of money, since once they’re in your computer, they can install all sorts of malware, hijack your browser, or even route all your traffic through a proxy server in another country! But generally they will gain control over your computer, mess things up worse than they were before, and then request far too much money to fix it. This is extortion.
If you’re concerned your computer might be infected with malware or viruses or other issues, please call someone you can trust to resolve it. If they contact you, it’s almost certainly a scam—particularly if they don’t even know your name. Make sure you have a file back-up system in place, too. I’ve written an article detailing an easy way to set up automatic back-ups so even if scammers get the best of you or drive failures occur, you’ll still have the files that matter to you.
Something to think about.
And speaking of thinking, this short video has some excellent suggestions to help keep you out of the reach of harmful scammers: