The Crime Prevention Website

Thanks to Nuneaton and Bedworth Neighbourhood Watch Association for bringing the following scam to my attention:

Over the past couple of days a number of telephone landline numbers in Warwickshire have been called by persons purporting to be calling from Microsoft Windows. They open the conversation by saying that they are ringing you from “Windows” about a problem with your “Windows” computer.

Their intention is to get you talking and suggest you need to do certain things to your computer to resolve a problem that has happened and has been detected on their system (a problem you never knew you had!). It’s a SCAM – they will then ask you to spend money to buy an upgrade to the fix the problem and then another problem occurs and more money is requested and so on. Where this has happened in the past some people have been tricked into spending over £1000!

Microsoft Windows and indeed Apple DO NOT call customers at home. Warwickshire residents are strongly advised to cut the call once the person says they are ringing from Windows. Don’t listen to what they are saying because they can be very persuasive. Remember, they are criminals – all they want is to steal your money!

Please ensure that you warn your friends and neighbours of this menace, especially older people who might not receive this warning.

TCPW Comment: This scam is just the latest one we can add to the long list; a list that seems to be growing by the day! The best way to deal with all of them coming to you by phone is to put the phone down.  You might also want to get yourself a call-blocker, so you can stop further calls coming to you from the offending number.

In the end, these crooks do what they do because they know that if they phone enough numbers, someone will fall for their scam.  The answer then is not to have anything to do with cold callers – either on the phone or at the door – ever! And as the article above rightly suggests, we should warn our friends and neighbours about these scams, especially those who are older, some of whom are perhaps not so savvy about such things.

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