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Scam call

ROBSONMENDES
Tuning in

Recently I have been contacted several times regarding some issue with my broadband service, supposed from some VM support but obviously it wasn’t, and this person has a heavy Asian accent, asking a bunch of questions, like how many devices are connected, what type etc, ( I was certain it was a scam but followed it along as it actually sounded legit) also saying to open the computer and press windows key and R and type eventvwr which I did, but then he asked me if I had teams installed on the computer and I said no, and he told me to install it, and then obviously I said to him gfys mate and go find a honesty job! 
but I’m concerned how VM can’t filter those type of call??? Would anything been done to my pc at this stage? I immediately opened my antivirus and ran a scam and came back as no threats, however I went and opened control panel to see if I had any new program installed today I found “microsoft 356 us-uk” although I have microsoft 365 family I uninstalled it as it was suspicious.

what can I do to further know if I have been infected or some?

 

 

 

[MOD EDIT: Subject title changed for clarity]

Thansk 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

jem101
Superstar

@ROBSONMENDES if literally all you did was to run the Event Viewer and nothing else, then you are fine - that in itself would have not done anything. The usual method is to ask you to look at the event logs and then they'll point out all sorts of things which can seem a bit 'scary' (they are actually all perfectly normal). They'll then say that these prove that your computer is infected and been hacked by foreign powers etc but not to worry they can fix it for you if you just install TeamViewer, Teams, other remote access software etc.

What I don't understand is why if you realised it wasn't a genuine VM call (incidentally no ISP cold-calls to tell you there is a fault and you need to ...., they are all 100% a scam), and you were certain it was a scam, then why continue with it?

How could VM filter these calls? They are genuine calls from a genuine (albeit spoofed) number, what you would need to do is have some kind of call answering device into which you program any genuine numbers which they allow through and anything else goes to voicemail for you to deal with later.

Don't worry about the Microsoft365 us-uk application, this is just a stub installer for the full product if wanted, many Windows installations have it pre-installed by default.

See where this Helpful Answer was posted

4 REPLIES 4

jem101
Superstar

@ROBSONMENDES if literally all you did was to run the Event Viewer and nothing else, then you are fine - that in itself would have not done anything. The usual method is to ask you to look at the event logs and then they'll point out all sorts of things which can seem a bit 'scary' (they are actually all perfectly normal). They'll then say that these prove that your computer is infected and been hacked by foreign powers etc but not to worry they can fix it for you if you just install TeamViewer, Teams, other remote access software etc.

What I don't understand is why if you realised it wasn't a genuine VM call (incidentally no ISP cold-calls to tell you there is a fault and you need to ...., they are all 100% a scam), and you were certain it was a scam, then why continue with it?

How could VM filter these calls? They are genuine calls from a genuine (albeit spoofed) number, what you would need to do is have some kind of call answering device into which you program any genuine numbers which they allow through and anything else goes to voicemail for you to deal with later.

Don't worry about the Microsoft365 us-uk application, this is just a stub installer for the full product if wanted, many Windows installations have it pre-installed by default.

@jem thanks very much to help me rest assured that my pc hasn’t been infected, when I said I did knew it was as scam I meant because the way they started the call, but I actually had few days issues with my broadband in the last few days so when they started to talk about it I wasn’t so sure anymore, until he asked me to install a program and then this was again a wake up call and I realised it really was a scam. 
Thanks very much for your help!

 


@ROBSONMENDES wrote:

<snip> when I said I did knew it was as scam I meant because the way they started the call, but I actually had few days issues with my broadband in the last few days so when they started to talk about it I wasn’t so sure anymore, <snip>


Sadly, this is exactly the unfortunate coincidence which the scammers exploit as their in-road to launching their scams.

For future ref, VM does not make unsolicited tech support calls to customers. So if you get any more along the lines that VM have 'identified some problems' then they are always a scam.

Thanks very much for reassuring this, the thing is, there was too many coincidences, I was with really bad broadband connection lately and I did run tests several times and I even got a response of one of these testes that was a broadband problem in my area. 
Anyway if ever some one asks you to download an application, BE AWARE!!!

Thanks guys!