For some reason this past week the phone scammers of the world have targeted me. The first is a call to my mobile asking to accept a reverse charge call and the second is a landline call from “computer support department for windows”.

In the mobile phone theme the caller leaves an indistinct name and obviously if you accept the call you will be charged. The calling number is 0845 6853000 and a little digging shows its from a reverse call service. So while perhaps not a scam and more of a prank, you will lose money. On my T-mobile pulse phone I can assign a ringtone to a number so that number now has a silence.mp3 attached to it :) It’s a rather mean prank since it plays on peoples fears, certainly my first worry was whether a family member was in trouble. But being a cold heartless type who thinks such things are more fear than reality and not recognising the name I declined to accept.

The second is clearly a scam and potentially more serious. A caller with an Indian accent introduces themselves as from “support for Windows” and asks if your PC has been running slowly. Shock! it might have a virus. Of course if you ask any Microsoft Windows user if their machine is running slower they will say “yes”. If I’ve time I try to string them along for a while just to rack up their phone bill, but truthfully I’m not too good at it ‘cos I can’t resist calling them evil scammers. Managed to chew some time asking if they were actually part of Microsoft (lots of evasion there) and by claiming I was running Ubuntu Windows 10.04 which confused them no-end. Apparently they want to gain remote access to your machine to “fix it” and then try to get you to cough up for a support contract. Both are VERY bad ideas. Why not have my house keys while your at it.

What bothers me is that people will fall for it. That’s why these scams run - they make money. With more and more technology that people just use but don’t understand these kind of issues are sadly only going to get worse.