'Your computer has a virus' cold call con artists on the rise: Microsoft

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/23/tech_support_scams_on_the_rise/

Microsoft has released stats showing that tech support scams are on the increase, with 153,000 complaints received and 15 per cent of complainants losing cold, hard cash.

For those who have been fortunate enough not to be subject to one, a tech support scam is typically where a ne'er-do-well will call up a user, usually claiming to be from Microsoft, and talk the victim through a number of steps that will result in something scary happening on the user’s screen and a fee being paid to resolve the ‘problem’.

Microsoft has published statistics from its own customer services team showing complaints up 24 per cent on 2016’s figures, with users who actually paid up losing between $200 and $400.

Among the people from 183 countries that ran to Microsoft with complaints was one unfortunate Dutch user that lost €89,000 after a scammer was able to empty their bank accounts.

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Needless to say, do not EVER engage with anyone from "Microsoft" (unless you want to troll them hard). The only exception to this is if you know, for a fact 100%, you are actually talking to someone from Microsoft because you are PAYING them for a support call. It used to be $35 per support incident but I'm sure that has gone up now. To even get to that service, I think you must go here first:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/contact/virtual-agent/?flowId=smc-home-hero&referrer=support.microsoft.com

You jump through all the virtual hoops there and you can either wait for a phone call or schedule one.

eta:



https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/gp/nochargefaq/en-gb