Bits'n'Bytes

Tip 16

I know I've touched on this one before, but phone scams are becoming so common, I just have to remind everyone not to get caught. Lately, these scammers have even called my own house to inform me that my computer needed repairs, and that I should let them fix it. They knew my phone number and even knew who to ask for. For a lot of people, knowing who to ask for seems to legitimize the call, but don't be fooled! I can call almost every one of you and ask for you by name – I just have to look in the phone book!

To get a better sense of how the scam goes, I let one of them try the spiel on me. He claimed he knew my IP address, but the number he gave me was not only not my IP address, it wasn't any IP address – just a bogus number. He then directed me to the Event Viewer program where Windows records and stores errors and warnings – most of which are pretty harmless. He then had me search through the event viewer to find errors – and ] I had to do some searching! He then pointed out that the few errors I found needed to be corrected and that he would log in and do it. All I had to do was go to his website and click on a particular link.

When I asked him what he could do that I couldn't, he started to ramble on a little bit. Finally I informed him of my credentials and my occupation and he promptly hung up.

Please, don't be fooled by these guys. Hang up as fast as you can!

Thanks for reading!

Until next week, I'm Computer Dave