Microsoft - Beware of scam phone calls

A friend of mine has sent me the following e-mail.  I have checked the Microsoft website and this story does appear to be true.  This particular friend is very knowledgeable about computers and the e-mail I had from him was genuine.  As a test I replied to him and got a sensible reply!


He said:


I have just had a call from a guy claiming to be from Microsoft who said that they had been receiving lots of reports from my computer that it was about to crash and I would lose all my data and, wait for it………….even my IP address. He sounded really genuine and even had the same voice of a guy I spoke to many months ago regarding a problem I did have. He wanted me to connect to a web site whereby their engineers could remotely connect to my computer and sort out the problem. He had my name, address and even email and I could so easily have fallen for it but would never have let anybody remotely control my computer if I had fallen for it. So be aware. This is the latest scam to hit the market. If they get in they will nick all your credit card details and other stuff.

If you are using Windows 7 to be safe please turn off REMOTE CONTROL by going to START > CONTROL PANEL > SYSTEM > REMOTE SETTINGS  (top left hand corner) and turn off ALLOW REMOTE ASSISTANCE CONNECTIONS TO THIS COMPUTER.

I also heard a similar story when we were staying in Worcester last week.