Cold Call Scams

Cold Calling is a term used by advertisers who call your home or office trying to sell you something. The "cold call" just means that they have no relationship with you before making the call. In other words you have never bought a product or used their services before. Nor have you requested information from them in the past. They just call hoping to make a sale.

Well this "technique" is now being used by hackers trying to gain access to your computer, your personal or business information and your credit card numbers. Over the past few months this type of attack on your information has skyrocketed with hundreds of cases being reported in Europe and North America.

What they will do is "cold call" you and say they are from Microsoft or some other well known computer company and even some better know local companies to you that they found in a phonebook.. They will then claim that they have detected that your computer has a virus on it and offer to clean it for you. Or they may claim your computer has errors that need to be fixed or they will try and trick you by asking if your computer is slower then when you first bought it (all computers slow down as more software is added to them).

In most cases they will then ask you to install special software so that they can have full access to your computer and then offer to sell you their anti-virus products or subscriptions for their repair services.

For victims that get tricked into doing as instructed they will have giving full access to their system through the software that gets installed and also would have giving up their credit card information to the hacker calling them.

So in the end the victim has a less secure computer that did not need to be fixed in the first place and these hackers now also have access to their money using the victims credit.

I'll point out a few things here that should help you avoid this scam.

1. Microsoft nor any other company I know of will ever call you to tell you that your infected. After all how would they know that the computer your on is infected and that you own it and somehow have your phone number? They can't, it's that simple.

2. Never give out any information to people you do not know over the phone or email unless you initiated the call.

3. Don't ever download software that gives remote access to anyone you have not meet in person. Once you give up this kind of control of your system you can never be 100% sure that they can't get back in again.

4. If you think your computer might have a problem always call a local computer tech that you can meet face to face and check out their references before starting any work. Of course the easiest way to avoid this type of scam is to always hang up your phone as soon as you come to the realization that the person calling you does not have any sort of personal or business relationship with you.

In the end this all boils down to what your mother told you long ago. Never talk to or give information to strangers. Do that and you'll be safe from this new scam.