Beginners be wary

I was almost caught just yesterday after getting a non genuine message come up on a cloned drive I thought I would call Microsoft.
So after a Google I ended up with a free 1800 number and into the lap of logmein123 which I went along with until the request for money came along. That is when I began to smell a rat. I got out of the login and only to find my docs gone taskbar empty and the non genuine pop up message gone, in fact the machine was in such a shambles I reinstalled to make sure I got rid of all traces of tha call and hook up.

So I did another Google and low and behold the actual Microsoft support phone site was a four digit number 13 20 58 to be exact (Australia) not the ten digit number I had mistakenly took as what I wanted.

I should have been a little more vigilant as I do remember discussing an activation issue while in the UK with my brothers machine but fortunately pulled up short of paying money.

So beginners beware!!

Good work catching that! Makes you wonder how many newbies get/got caught. Thanks for the heads up , its just too bad you can't "broadcast" it over the whole net.

Please do not take this in a wrong way, but didn't you learn anything from this, only a week and a half ago?

Without double and triple checking the authenticity of the phone number and company behind it, I would never even dream to let someone access my PC, however big the issue was.

One mistake can happen accidentally, a similar mistake only days thereafter is in these corners called [original expression removed to avoid any legal sanctions] "not wise".

Kari said:

Please do not take this in a wrong way, but didn't you learn anything from this, only a week and a half ago?

Without double and triple checking the authenticity of the phone number and company behind it, I would never even dream to let someone access my PC, however big the issue was.

One mistake can happen accidentally, a similar mistake only days thereafter is in these corners called [original expression removed to avoid any legal sanctions] "not wise".

Yep Kari mate that is the post I referred to:) I just was sitting here and thought it a good idea to heads up any newcomers. I didn't mention either it was like the Telstra (our national carrier) whose call centre is based in the Philippines and this one was obviously somewhere in or around India way. They are very adept at asking you to wait until they pass you on to their supervisor or the right department so to give the impression that you are dealing with a large organization.
I saw this in action on one of the current affairs programs on our national TC channel:)

gregrocker said:

Wondering why you would connect for paid help when we offer much better help here. There is no comparison with the level of competency we offer here and any phone support I've ever seen or heard of.

MS Phone support today is to laugh. OEM tech support seems replaced by a bad parody troupe.

Perhaps the IT phone support at a top level Fortune 500 company would compare, but I doubt it - and it would be specialized to their setups.

Except for certain one-off searchable instances where MS Community has a better fix, even their top MVP's recognize that Seven Forums is the top tech resource on the web.

Sorry Greg I missed your post. I was obviously not thinking too well at the time being on graveyard shift and as I said I fixed a similar problem for my brother in the UK.
It was not meant to be ANY reflection on the fellow members in here I was simply very tired and had only just fixed the crashed machine.

I think I am dreaming. Does this thread imply that a fairly experienced member of this Forum fell for the "I need to connect to your machine scam?" i find that very difficult to believe. I use Team Viewer with some of the members of my small computer club but I always insist on impressing them that they should never allow anyone to take remote control of their PC who they do not know personally would not allow them to come into their home and use their computer in situ!

mitchell65 said:

I think I am dreaming. Does this thread imply that a fairly experienced member of this Forum fell for the "I need to connect to your machine scam?" i find that very difficult to believe. I use Team Viewer with some of the members of my small computer club but I always insist on impressing them that they should never allow anyone to take remote control of their PC who they do not know personally would not allow them to come into their home and use their computer in situ!

Yes it does Mitchell I used logmein years ago and being on a long string of night shifts and with a just repaired crashed main machine I took my eye off the ball. But there is no accounting for silly old buggers like me who should be retired and taking it easy after 50+ working eh?
Trouble is mate there are not enough of us to go around so I carry on for a just that bit longer:)

If you John, are a silly old bugger, what does that make me, another John, who has been going for 60 years this August? We just don't know when to stop.

mitchell65 said:

If you John, are a silly old bugger, what does that make me, another John, who has been going for 60 years this August? We just don't know when to stop.

Well John I was going to quote "Let those amongst you who is without guilt - cast the first stone" but it seems that I was wrong AGAIN in assuming that you were a younger fellow than I read into your comment.
As for stopping my friend I am going to retire shortly in any case as the profession I chose is no where near the one I started in.
For the logmein as I said I took my eye off the ball just as one does sometimes driving and in an instant find oneself in a world of problems eh? The fact that money was brought up woke me up to myself but I don't profess to be perfect in this issue and well it certainly will not happen again.
By the way many happy returns for whenever the birthday is my frined from hereon it is a very fast downward slope.
I saw a doco on TV just recently where they reasoned out the existence of time and truly it doesn't exist except in out minds and what we know as a life you have probably realised now is but a brief spark if that in the grand scheme of the universe and truth.
Apologies for the spelling my speckie has packed it in LOL!!

PS a '46 drop in Sussex originally LOL!!