Telephone solicitation scams happen all the time, but now it seems a new type of phone fraud is starting to make itself known. Colorado"s KKTV.com reports that this new phone scam involves a person claiming to represent Microsoft.
A woman by the name of Norma Charles recently received a call from a man who said he was from Microsoft. The man told Charles that her PC was just about to crash but that he could fix it by remotely going into her PC if she opened up her web browser to a specific site. The man then told her he could fix her problems for $300. It was at this point that Charles hung up.
Yet another similar scam was reported in a letter to the editor of Tampa Bay Online. This time the man, W. John Mullins, said a woman called him saying she was from "Windows" and basically offered him the same kind of remote PC repair service. Mullins then hung up but got another call the next day from a man who tried once again to go through the same scam.
Microsoft has sent out a statement about this kind of remote PC repair scheme, saying:
This is a known scam. Criminal organizations are using Microsoft"s name to try to gain your trust. I can categorically confirm that neither Microsoft nor our partners make unsolicited phone calls to help solve your computer problems. If you receive an unsolicited phone call that purports to be from Microsoft and requests that you send personal information, hang up the phone.