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On 05/10/2012 15:44, Martijn Grooten wrote:
Actually the majority I've received have been stupid enough to say they are calling from Windows, but I agree they don't *all* do it :)On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 2:15 PM, Julian Hall wrote:I'm on Twitter (@JulianMHall) and I usually tweet when I've had one reminding people that *nobody* will telephone to say you have a virus, least of all Windows which is a product not a company, and asking them to RT it.That's great, though I think they tend to say they are from Microsoft, not Windows. And in many cases they don't even say who they call from, or they call from BT, or from some vague company.
Never had anyone legitimate contact me personally, but fair enough if it does happen I'll take your word for it :)And some ISPs and some banks do contact their customers when the latter are infected with malware. Usually not by phone, but it's not to be excluded, and it's not necessarily a bad idea either.
Another problem is that some of these scams do only a few things that are strictly illegal. Misrepresentation usually (claiming to call from Microsoft, or to be Microsoft certified) and possibly making false claims about infections, but when I once managed to make it past the payment stage, all they did was run a few free tools. Vastly overpriced, sure (I "paid" £89), but that part isn't illegal.
I'm fairly sure obtaining money by false pretences is illegal. Julian -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq