When “Microsoft” Calls, Be Wary

by Marlene Berlin

The phone rang, and I looked to see who it was. No identification came up. I had a quick debate with myself about whether to pick it up.

I don’t usually do this, but for some reason I answered the call. The fellow on the other end told me that he was from Microsoft and they were receiving error messages from my computer.

I had recently switched to Microsoft Exchange, which is a cloud service, so that I could sync my devices. So my scam antennae were not raised at this point.

But when he started giving me directions on what to key-in to allow them to find out what was wrong. Warning bells started to go off. I told him to contact my tech support team and work through them since I had not a clue who he was. He quickly hung up.

I called my tech support service, which sent me these tips on avoiding scams such as these. And I learned my lesson.