Computer scams are becoming an every day threat in an ever expanding world of technology. One such event that just happened to me and my family recently. Here is my mothers rendition of the event:

An middle-eastern women calls asking for me (by name) and says that she’s with some company by the name of Support On Click that works with Microsoft on Windows security. Of course, I knew this was a scam but decided to play along to see the extent to which this scam impact would be. She goes into a long explanation about how Windows users are getting viruses that lock up their systems. Then, asks which anti-virus software I use. Not wanting to provide any facts, I said, “yes, I have anti-virus software –one of the leading brands.” Again, she pushes for the name, but I didn’t tell her. Next she goes into some speech about how she’ll transfer me to tech support who will help me change my PC settings to prevent the virus from getting in. Next, I’m transferred to a middle-eastern man who tells me he’ll provide instructions on how to make the fix. It goes something like this, “Please go to your start button and click it, next right click on Computers and then go to Manage….blah, blah, blah”. At this part I wasn’t at my computer, but played along and pretended to do those steps all the way from START>COMPUTERS> MANAGE>. He kept asking “what do you see?” to which I challenged him by responding “What should I be seeing?”. Again, he asked what I see and I replied “what should I be seeing”. This angered him and after one more exchange of the same he hung up the phone. I know that he was trying to either get me to provide my IP address and/or download software that would turn my machine into a zombie. I must say it was fun wasting some of the scammers time preventing them from calling the next potential victim. BEWARE!

I would like to thank my mother for sharing her expirence with me so that you might be able to catch this scam in the future. Remember to stay safe online and never give out personal information.