When “Microsoft” Calls, Be Wary | Forest Hills Connection || News and Life in Our DC Neighborhood

We bet this guy never had to deal with tech support scam calls… (photo from the Library of Congress, loc.gov)

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.

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