Friday, July 26, 2019
Microsoft Security Alert phone call
got one of these just now, a recording with a stern warning that if we do NOT call this number immediately we will be charged for them reinstalling a Microsoft Security Alert, to the tune of 249 bucks.
Got a phone number.
Once my heart went back into it's proper place I thought, hey. Microsoft doesnt work that way. so I checked out online, and apparently a lot of people thought they did.
if you get one of these calls, just ignore it.
wow.
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If I don't recognize any phone number, I Google on it with a spam query. lots of reports on them usually. Then I block the number. This doesn't work so well when it's my doctor's nurse calling after hours from a cellphone! But she'll leave a vm.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of scary calls happening, often to older people, wrt tax, social security, etc. All fake.
yep, most of them I just hang up, gently. Next time I have a 'live one" I plan to just say, 'excuse me' and leave the line open. bwahaha.
DeleteBut this one was a recording, so rudeness doesn't work. And even if I block this one, they have others. I ain't scared (sniff, jab), nope.
I've seen some outrageous ones over time, including one to my mother in law announcing that she owed the government 6 figures in taxes--for one year. Turns out it was a scam (all official letter head and all), and since she was dead, she wasn't at all impressed. Nor were we.
Yes, I have received some of those phone calls.
ReplyDeleteSomehow my linux system continue to run well without help from Microsoft. I just ignore those calls.
we have security essentials and that works just fine, tyvm.
DeleteI think it was the voice. Female, grim, as if the world were ending and we only had five hours to save ourselves...
I got an email the other day. VERY official looking. From Apple. I needed to blah, blah, blah in order to blah, blah, blah...
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought, well, maybe there IS a problem. We did just change banks a few months ago. And then I really looked at the text and realized that there were so many small errors in grammar that Apple simply would not make but a non-English speaker would.
I deleted immediately.
exactly. Errors, mis-typed addresses, funny language usage...and then you realize you can let your heart settle back in your chest.
DeleteI think, in a way these scammers are doing us a favor, since it makes us less vulnerable than our parents were, and more careful.
Years ago on another site we were talking about those idiot messages you sometimes get in email, and one girl (otherwise known as beans for brains) said, I write to all of them (oh my god) and ask them WHY are they sending me this stuff, I don't KNOW them...someone suggested that she shouldn't be answering them at all, and she said, what?? That would be so rude...
Yesterday, we received over a dozen calls from numbers I did not recognize and I didn’t answer any of them. I also got a call on my mobile which I didn’t answer. They left a voice message which I also didn’t answer. We are being invaded by scammers from all over the world.
ReplyDeleteMy husband has the only smart phone and it's only on when he says it is, which isn't often. He never gives the number out except to people he knows, and he lets me handle the landline stuff.
DeleteI dread the election frenzy.
Computer programs enable endless random number combinations, so I get calls from Azerbaijan, Sierra Leone, Lithuania etc. No doubt spam factories. Never leave messages, but they establish which numbers are valid, sigh. I block endlessly, but they have endless source numbers.
ReplyDeleteI love the ones that ask politely how am I today, and "my name is David" but with a heavy Peter Sellers Indian accent when I hear that accent, I just quietly hang up.
DeletePhone numbers are limitless, and I've learned not to be annoyed by it, at least they aren't coming to the door and selling religion.