Just wanted to pass on to my fellow Leeds fans: I have been telephoned at least twice a day by an International number, which upon lifting and speaking to the person on the other line, is clearly a dodgy African person or sometimes they try to sound Asian. They inform you that they work for some computer company that works with your ISP and that they have been informed that there are security problems with your computer that they need to fix. At this point they will ask you to go to your computer and then they will ask you to carry out some basic functions, which will display problems on your computer. You will then be asked to download software that will clean up your computer, followed by the request for your banking details to pay for this software. Obviously only someone with little understanding of computers or how nasty some people really are would fall for this stuff, but they are successful so some people are falling for it. The end product is that they have your bank details and full access to your computer, you can guess the rest. I have allowed the callers to get so far and then I ask them what my ISP is, they then get a little angry with you and eventually tell you to "**** off". One of the things they might say, is that they work for Microsoft. So that everyone is aware, Microsoft NEVER telephone you, unless you have contacted them and left specific details with the person dealing with your call. Ask the caller what your Microsoft ID is and what number they are calling from, they will hang up. Quote from Microsoft: “Microsoft takes the privacy and security of our customers and partners personal information very seriously. We are advising customers to treat all unsolicited phone calls with skepticism and not to provide any personal information to anyone over the phone or online. Anyone who receives an unsolicited call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft should hang up. We can assure you Microsoft does not make these kinds of calls.” According to BT, the best thing to do is to put the phone down on them as soon as they start talking or not answer the call in the first place, they get fed up with no answer or having the phone put down on them before they get a chance to speak. I understand this is going on throughout the UK just now and just thought I'd let everyone know of my experience.
Spoke to OFCOM today about this issue and they have informed me it's a world wide problem. They are working with various agencies to find these people and feel they will catch them very soon, but until then just hang up. I'd personally ban all internal calls from India, Africa and Asia to the UK, unless you opt in for them, thus the bastards can't get through anyway and the big companies in the UK, then need to hire UK people for their call centres and pay them the going rate.
