Beware the ‘Microsoft’ cold-calling technical support scam

ONE of the Euro Weekly News offices was targeted by a cold-calling scammer claiming to work for Microsoft this week, so we thought we would take the opportunity to warn our readers about the fraudulent scheme.

The racket involves untraceable phone calls to owners of Windows computers  – in our case the number displayed was 000000 – during  which the caller attempts to trick the recipient into paying to fix a bogus security problem.

It is easy to avoid by simply putting the phone down, since Microsoft will never initiate technical support communications with customers, so if you receive such a call, email, or online message you can be 100 per cent sure that it is fake.

Newer scams also use pop-up online adverts to reach younger audiences, but again Microsoft themselves will never do this.