Scam Uses Phone Call Claiming to be Microsoft
Apparently the latest scam to hit the UK comes down your phone line from someone who is pretending to be from Microsoft in a bid to dupe people out of their cash for saving their computer from suffering a fate worse than death.
According to an article over on Techeye, a report over on The Guardian reports the scam is simple, you get a call from someone with an Indian accent asks for the householder and tells them “I’m calling from Microsoft.”
The scammer then goes on to say they’ve received reports from their ISP of “serious virus problems” from the householders PC then goes on to predict the end of life as we know it if the problem isn’t solved. Then the householder is asked to open the program “Windows Event Viewer” which shows an abundance of errors which falsely gets the user to trust the fake caller.
Naturally the Microsoft fake then directs the user to a website to download a program which will allow the caller to remotely take control of the PC and supposedly fix all the problems after which the caller requires the user to hand over £185 for subscription to the supposed “preventative service.”
According to the Guardian article this scam has been running since 2008, but has worsened after being run out of call centres based in Kolkata. On a final note if you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft, don’t fall for it because Microsoft never calls anyone.
Comments
250 thoughts on “Scam Uses Phone Call Claiming to be Microsoft”
I was contacted by someone allegedly from Microsoft who advised me that my service provider had reported that my computer was running too slow. After failing to cure the 'problem' over the phone allegedly due to a virus,he passed me on to an outfit called helppconline. They conned me into a year's subscription of 90 pounds before allegedly fixing the problem. They then immediately tried to persuade me totake out a 4 or 5 year subscription,which I declined. Helppconline rang me TWICE 8 and 9 days later AGAIN trying to sell the same 'service'. I then contacted their sales people who apologised for not having taken my name off their action list due to pressure of work or similar feeble excuse. I am convinced that I was conned and would advise anyone to avoid these shysters like the plague.Has anyone any idea how I can protect myself and my computer now that these gangsters have so much of my personal information? Can Trading Standards do anything? David
I was contacted on Friday 30th July by a firm calling themselves Virtual Support they alledged that my computer was being taken over by viruses and if I went to the start button they would tell me how to solve the problem. I asked for their number 08455085236 as it sounded suspicious especially when they said they had been monitoring my computer for three weeks!!!. Do not give any information about your computer over the phone treat it like your banking information and pin number. Bonfida companies wait for you to contact them. Remeber the old day when traders knocked to tell you your roof needed fixing seems they have moved on to computers.
Get yourselves a personal attack alarm and when they call you set it off down the fone
I am so pleased with the help I have received. I thank you for your services.
Today 1st Nov 2010, I had a phone call saying my computer had been running slowly for a few days and they could help me fix it. I replied that was very interesting because (a) it was in fact running OK (b) it had been a local compuer repair shop being repaired for another problem for the last few days and (c) that my son in fact worked for IBM on system security and had told me that this was a big scam. The person I was speaking to couldn't give me answers if I asked any questions; such as exactly who are you and where are you based. My final parting shot, at which time he was talking over me in a very loud and aggresive way, was that they must never call me again, and to take me off their data base. Hopefully this is the last time they will ring.
I have been called several times,I started to download and a security alert came up,I told "Hayden Peter"I wasn't going to run it and put the phone down.He had the cheek to ring back 4 mins later.
Just recived a call from a Mr Peter with an asian/ indian accent claiming to be from Microsoft, He said he had recieved a complaint about our internet. We were very reluctant and asked a lot of questions. He gave the number 08009774035 and name of company "help pc on line" Luckly we didn't trust him, looks like a scam.
just had a phone call myself. told him my virus stuff is totally up to date. he tried telling me that it bypasses firewalls. i told him i wasnt happy to run this programme without looking into it. told him i'd call him back. he said ok aftre a long long time.. the site was helppconline.co.uk. he had an indian accent also. i then typed in the web address he said he was from, with the word review. Thank goodness you were all here to advise me of this scam. thanks a million people
The same thing has just happened to me. Lady said she was from Microsoft and that they heard our system was running slow and that they would do a free PC check to find out the problem.
I got suspicious when they asked me to download a FREE PC checker from their website helppconline.co.uk and Internet Explorer came up with a security warning saying that it couldn't verify the software. I also noticed that it was a .exe type file, which I've heard are the kind NOT to download to your PC as they have more or less free reign to do what they like within your system. I told the lady (Asian sounding) that I was getting this warning and she put me on hold.. that's when I decided to hang up…….Phew.. Glad I did after reading these other comments
I also just had the call from Peter with the Indian accent. Said he was calling on behalf of Microsoft, but I specifically asked the name of his company, and he said it was help PC Online. Said my ISP has informed my computer was running slowly – but could not tell me who my ISP was! I said I had complained about slower broadband than my ISP had promised but had eventually been able to get my ISP's engineer to do something about the line speed. I stated that this had nothing to do with my PC, and no, I was not going to do anything with him about my pc and he rang off. 1471 only produced the number '00' and nothing else! They do have a website with lots of poor English on it and I would be very wary of accessing any of their services! Chris Male
I stupidly fell for this scam too,computer is very ill !! so it sounded very plausible & I gave credit card details etc then after speaking to someone else that same evening we cancelled by phone (supposed to be a 15 days to change you mind -get your money back according to their web site), emailed their help line no reply & still waiting for money back over 2 wks ago!! Reported to Fraud Squad but cut off in middle of call!.(assumed I'd made a mistake!!) Beware, especially if not computer literate (& an OAP)! Sue lowe
Oddly enough I was saved by the Archers. Like so many others I got a phone call claiming to be from Microsoft – luckily it was after hours. I was in the kitchen at the time and the pc was switched off. Had I been at my desk I might just have fallen for it. The caller was not readily identifiable as any kind of Indian but had a well spoken English accent and was both plausible and persistent. Error messages were he claimed emanating from this machine. A simple keyboard analysis could fix the problem. I was asked to hold on to the phone and to boot up the pc. Knowing how long it takes to get on line via BT I then realised I'd miss the latest from Ambridge and declined the offer. My caller then asked to fix a time in the next day or so when the 'problem' could be dealt with. At this point the penny dropped. But it was a close run thing.
I was at my mothers house when she received a call about her computer. She is 80 years old and has NEVER used a computer in her life. I pretended to be her and went along with everything the caller said…pretending to be taken in by him. Eventually after telling me to press a couple of buttons on my "non-existent" computer he asked what I could see on the screen. As I knew about this scam I told him there was a message on my computer informing me that the idiot I was talking to was an even bigger fool that he thought I was…….and so on and so on. Eventually he realised that I wasn't using a computer and was stringing him along and he told me to "F**K OFF!". He then called back after a minute and just said "F**K OFF" again. The third time…..a minute or so later….when he called I told him the police were tracing the call and would probably be with him soon to arrest him. He didn't call again! He was obviously upset that his scam didn't work and I felt I'd got one up on him……..I'll be doing the same to the next one! Failing that I've bought a really loud whistle so after letting them run on for a bit I then intend to deafen them!
Thursday 2nd Sept 2010
Just had a call from someone with an almost incomprehensible Indian accent, who claimed my ISP had complained that my internet links was running too slowly. He claimed that his company was under contract to Microsoft to fix any such problems and that I should not contact any friend or vendor ( His word !) for help. I was extremely dubious about the call and asked for the name of his company…helppconline.com. He then asked me to turn on my computer. Claiming I did not have it with me I asked him to call back later when I had brought it in from the car. He agreed to call back this evening. I then ran checks on the internet and found your site and was not surprised to see that it was, as I thought , a scam. I look forward to the return call this evening and the opportunity to confront my asian friend.
I was contacted yesterday 2 september by help pc online saying that my computer had been reported as being slow said they where from microsoft and they could cure the problem told me to switch on my computer and open up their web page then they showed me a list of virises infomed me that my firewall was not working and my anti viris they could fix it on line for the sum of 94.99 and I would have no more trouble for twelve months I asked for some time to think about it and was told he would hang on while I decided no matter how long it took I asked for a name and phone number I was given the name kevin who seemed to be Indian or Asian and the number 02033180526 I scaned my computer first and found it all clear and everything working I then rang the number and got help pc online and asked for kevin was told he was not in the building but would ring me back which he did I told him I was not interested and he was not pleased and hung up Beware of this scam
Had a call this pm from Ben of "Microsoft"; who then admitted that he was a consultant with PC Online. Strong Indian accent almost incomprehensible. Sorry as above – luckily used the old desktop which runs very slow so we had a long time to chat. He gave me his name, various telephone numbers 02033180526 and 08009770035; plus te website helppconline.co.uk. He was trying to encourage me to log on and download software to update, scan etc. Explained that I had all of that and neede nothing else – did ask where he was located and advised Cardiff, i told him that I couldn't here English or Welsh in the background and was surprised at the sound of a crying child, put on mute and then he politely rung off! Then checked on the internet; plus my virus software marks the website as "dodgy" – all your comments prove this.
I had a call from …. same as you all, saying that my computer was running slow etc. The company was not microsoft but associated with them. I played dumb and was passed on to another man who could solve the problem. I wasn't 100% sure if it was a scam was 99% though, they are very good. In the end I got bored of playing with them so I told them I had a mac (they can't get viruses). The phone went down without another word.
I had a telephone call today from an Asian ounding gentleman who told me that he was ringing from Microsoft about my computer. he didn't know my details but mentioned my computer was running slowly. He wanted me to start my computer and go to a website called "helppconline.co.uk". This is the second time someone with an Asian accent has tried to get me to go onto a website to diagnose problems. Before I went any further I asked him for his phone number which he gave as 02033180526 and that he was ringing from Cardiff. At this point I terminated the call. Microsoft don't divulge details so for me this was simply a ruse to either get my bank details or get me to pay for something that I don't need.
I was contacted on Wednesday 8th September, 2010 by an Asian sounding person claiming that he was from HelpPcOnline. He said that he was calling on behalf of Microsoft's technical support. He also claimed that they had been notified by my ISP that my laptop was running slow.
I did not part with any money because I wanted to first check this company out online. I'm glad I did!!!
However, they did persuade me to open up their website HelpPcOnline.com to run some so-called diagnostics on my laptop. They claim that my firewall and antivirus software were trashed and that my hard-drive is vulnerable for all the world to see. I also gave them my name, date of birth, address and phone numbers.
Now I am wondering how safe my hard-drive is and how safe my personal details are from these people. Does anyone know?
I just had one from the same kinda of people, they wanted me to open the event viewer and try and scare me with the pretty standard machine error messages. The resolution was to delete these messages by remotely connecting to a MS certified engineer – being a MS Engineer myself I was wondering how far these people would go, but after I had enough and called them out on it, he tried to pass me on to his supervisor.
Errors in the event viewer are normal and just logs everything from printer errors to proper things that can help you diagnose problems – that is all. Don't fall for it. 🙂
I hate these scare tactics – I was just glad I had the background to know that he was trying to scam me.
Luckily I was home when my dad was speaking to them (he's not very computer-literate), and he passed the phone on to me. I was immediately suspicious because of a few reasons:
1. The most used computer in our house is a Mac.
2. Although we do have a windows machine, it's barely been used for months.
3. It struck me as very odd that Microsoft would call us.
My dad believed them at first however, because we'd recently went over our download limit (and been charged for it) and none of us knew how it had happened. The man on the phone was telling us that we had a virus and that our computer could crash at any moment. Nevertheless, I followed his instructions and switched on the PC to see where he was going with this. Once I had Event Viewer open and could see the errors and warnings, I knew it was a scam – I'm very familiar with the version of Windows we use on that machine, and I know that they occur innocently. I'm sure he asked for a "one time payment of £29.95", and asked if I had a Paypal account. Upon hearing this, I hung up.
Found both online and telephone service ..excellent. A Hiccup on the length of my contract …but not a disaster.Service prompt and follow of promises honoured…Glad I signed up….so far!
This just happenned to me in New Zealand tonight. Very strong Indian accent on crackly line. I could barely understand the guy! He claimed to be in Wellington (our captial city) and knew only my last name and claimed that I was the registed user of a microsoft system. I was given my computer second hand and I don't think I am the registered owner so I became really confused. He gave me the phone number 064 09748874 and the website http://www.callpc2phone.com In the end after I argued with him for a while he hung up on me.
Just got conned by these people, told me they had been contacted by ips that my laptop wasnt working propaly (which it isnt) and could sort it out, all i had to do was regester for £7.91 which by the end became £94.99 even when they brought up my bank secure site to pay and i told them i had forgotten the password THEY changed it for me and withdrew the money. Luckily after i got of the phone to them i called the bank to report them being able to change passwords and the bank has cancelled the payment and frozen my account. I now have to call retail fraud and sort out all the genuine payments from my account. Please just hang up if HELPPCONLINE call its not worth all the hastle.
I have just been phoned by the same outfit. Luckily I don't have a landline near my computer and he wasn't "authorised" to use my mobile. I doubt he would have got very far because I did begin to suspect things were a little off while I was fruitlessly searching for a landline connection. I also have virus protection and a suspicious mind but even so I was still almost there. I also couldn't help but notice the name of the company as being HelpCONline. A hint there surely. Also they asked for the owner of the computer not me by n ame.
just had a call from an asian male saying mcrosoft wanted to fix a fault on my computer, i asked him for i.d. and told him i could hear my voice echoing back,i could hear many other people around him engaged in similar conversations; he told me he was from click uk who were microsofts maintenance engineers and could i switch my pc on as they needed to talk me through steps to fix it. i put my partner on the phone and the caller got angry and shouted"F… OFF YOUR WASTING MY TIME!" needless to say,my partner rang off. im concerned for elderly people falling for these scams. please hang up if you recieve this sort of call! what a society! Jan.
Just had a call today 21/09/2010 from someone saying they were from Microsoft ( complete with the AMERICAN axcent) and that my IP provider had called them to tell them i had a problem with my internet running slow
told them i didnt have the internet and they hung up.
LOOKS LIKE ANOTHER SCAM GOING ROUND BEWARE OF IT
Same rubbish. I live in the midlands uk.
Phone call lasted 30 seconds as I told her to get lost.
timed 19.35 21/09/2010
Also had an indian sounding guy on the phone – can't remember what name he gave but it was made up not mickey mouse, but along those lines. He told me that my computer was running slow and I was immediately suspicious as this is the 4th time now he has rung. He said my ISP had told him and I asked how they would know. Then seemed to remember I heard this type of scam before and when people say they are calling on behalf of a reputable company I am always sceptical. I kept asking how much this was going to cost me and was it a scam and then he spent 5 minutes trying to convince me it wasn't. In the end I told him I had to go and hung up. You can hear the call centre in the background and the number is always unavailable.
just had the same ppl try to get me into it i live in new zealand but as i kept asking why and how they would possibly know anything they handed me over to the "head " of the department and i told them i found it awfully dodgy then they gave me this website and as soon as i seen this i informed them they were a scam and they were like no no no dont look at that too late i wasa already reading and i just informed them if i had a problem i would take it to my computer technician and hung up these were all indian ppl and you could hear others in the background which made me suss on its own as professionals dont call all from the same room!
I make it a practise to always get the persons name, in this case Lisa Richards, indian accent, just for such events as these! I freely admit to not knowing/or at least remembering about what goes on behind my computer, how viruses get there and how to get rid of them etc, so if someone offers me help on this I listen. But fortunately whilst this lady was on the phone for 30mins I was googling HELPPCONLINE and found scam written all over the related sites so another one escapes their clutches!!
I have just today had a call from a man with an Indian sounding accent claiming to be Johnny Brown(?). Said he was phoning to help me with the problems concerning my computer. I said "What rubbish – you have no idea who I am and know nothing about my computer. This is just a scam."
He said "I swear to god madam – you should not accuse me of such a thing."
I asked him to tell me something about my computer and he lamely replied that I had Windows. (Not true in fact). So I said "Now you've proved it's a scam" and hung up."
It seems the call came from 90990 – no idea what this is but he was not very convincing.
They are still at it. Just had the "We're from Microsoft" call about a slow running computer. Hung up after a few seconds and and then searched for people with similar experiences and landed here. I live in Scotland.
Just had a call from an Adam Johnson (with an Indian accent) claiming to be calling on behalf of my internet provider as my internet was running slow. I nearly fell for it as I had just logged a call with my work IT help desk as I was having problems with my work pc. He asked if I was logged on and I stated that I wasn't, he then asked if I could log on I said no as I was busy working. I asked if I could call him back and he gave me two numbers – 0800 9770035 or 0203 3180526 at this point I thought 0800 numbers don't exist now! and it confirmed that I was indeed smelling a scam. I then called my internet provider to ask them if they worked with a company called helppconline and they confirmed that they did not and that I had done the best thing not letting them access my pc etc….
0800 numbers do still exist actually.
I was at my mum and dads last nite and this indian guy said he was ring from microsoft so I asked him what is it about and he then asked who are you ! the conversion follwed with some swearing from him directed at me so I put the phone down !
Please be carefull I think this needs to be reported to the press before any one else gets conned !!
Tell all your family and freinds email around work whatever you have to do !!
I've had this phone call. Luckily I sensed that it was a con. Throughout the call the Indian guy was telling me that they could fix all sorts of problems on my computer for free! Then he said that there would be a registration fee involved so I declined.
However during the call he did get me to down load his Helppconline programme. I shall eventually remove this but does anyone know if there is anything sinister about having this programme downloaded ono one's computer? Can it be used as a form of Spyware by them?
Could they even gain my bank details from it and sign me up any way?
By the way. They have made an unfortunate choice of name: HelppCONline !!!
All I wanna say is, its a fake company do not give your credit card details to them. They claim to be Microsoft but Microsoft never calls people.
Had this company call me several times, it comes up as International on my caller display so was a bit sceptical to begin with anyway. Asked 'Ethan' to call me back and he did!!! In the meantime, I contacted my ISP and asked them if they had reported a fault with my computer or internet to Microsoft and they confirmed they didn't do such things and if there was a fault their own engineers would contact me.
I refused to access the http://www.helppconline.com website whilst talking to Ethan and then asked were they were based, I was told West Sussex, on checking out the website which my IE detailed as iffy sure enough Crawley in West Sussex comes up.
I didn't give this guy any information or access or money as I just smelt a rat and now reading this, I was right not too. Do take care everyone!!
We had a call from an indian sounding chap saying he'd had a report from our ISP that our computer was suffering serious problems and was running slow. He asked to speak to my husband which is weird because I am the account holder, not him. When I asked him to go through some security questions with me he didn't know who my ISP was, stating that they get reports from all of them. Having smelled a rat I proceeded with caution and he had me looking at a website called "helppconline". I had to press a big 'start' button, which, lo and behold, flagged up that my anti-virus software was compromised. When I said I'd get my usual IT guy in to sort it out he got quite agitated to a point where I couldn't even understand what he was saying. I hung up, and he hasn't called back. My AVG software is fine, I've checked. Worrying, as I'm ex-directory. AVOID AVOID AVOID.
God have just had Lisa Richards and this scam as well! Got a little bit suspicious and said I would call them back and was given the number 08009770035. I had already downloaded their pc checker and had all the speil about the firewall, anit virus etc. and when she said she was now going to put me through to the technical department to sort it out, I declined and said that it wasn't a good time and that I would ring them back. Checked with my ISP as I had just contacted them and they told me that they do not ask Microsoft to ring. Hope I haven't compromised my PC in any way! Bummer!
received their call as well. i live in Australia. luckily my mum handed me the phone as she did not understand what they were going on about. i have a mac, so no microsoft software is on there. also, what global company rings people up individually? i was supiscious immediately. the caller called twice. the second time i told him where he could access his brain.
I also was scammed on Sat to the tune of $100.00 I am in California usa and now what do we do. They claim to be working with Microsoft and my computer was slow. Why? Only home use, A Ryan W with and Indian accdent called on Sat and he stole my money. I fixed the computer and they lied. They continue to call (another one today) Monday and I hung up on hm, He was rude and questioned the fact I knew nothing about my computer,, I told him you are all scamming us and like I said hung up. Yes we need to find who is doing this and does Microsoft know about this, I just want my money back.
Oh hell, these are all sounding familiar. I got the same call last night and was directed to help pc online, i ran there device that searches for faults thats as far as the call went….however i got the feeling the 'advisors' were stalling for time which from what i have read here tells me they had remote control over the computer, i hung up didnt give them any personal details however turned the net book on this morming and the technical term is 'buggered'. it wouldnt type letters on word or in google tool bar, i pressed one letter and it made an illegible word, the backspace button back spaced pages rather than deleted letters…help, what have they dont to my netbook, Im on my pc at the mo? I had the net book on when they rang as its just been back to currys with a falut so i thought the all was ver plausible having only had it back a day when they rang. Because i didnt pay them anythin or pass on details have they remotely accessed the computer when i ran their program and ballsed it up…please help anyone
Last night I got a phone call from an Indian man claiming to be a Mirosoft engineer. He told me that he had had a report telling him I had some kind of problem with my computer. He asked me to open the Event Viewer on my desk top in which I saw hundreds of errors. He asked me how many I had and I told him there were hundreds. He said,"Oh my GOD this is really bad, I must solve this problem for you. He then asked me to type in a e-mail address which I refused to do. I told him I would phone him back on the Microsoft phone number. I told him I thought it was abit strange and would find the number on my computer and get back to him. He told me he would give me the number himself 08442720056. I put the phone down and rang PC World. The gentleman I spoke to told me Microsoft would never phone up and it was a scam. I then rang the number back where a recorder message, Indian ladies voice, said p.c help desk support. It was not Microsoft. What a thing to do!!!!!! I felt sick.
I just had a call too. Indian accent, same story as the others. I knew right away as I fix and build computers and know a thing or two about all this stuff. they picked the wrong number this time but I was still unable to get any idea on who they are or where they are working from! I planned to let him connect to my PC but I accidentally scared him off before it got to that and he hung up!
PEOPLE! If you were convinced by them to run a program they got you to download then it means that YOU GAVE THEM REMOTE ACCESS TO YOUR PC!
In other words, after you ran that program, someone was browsing through all the folders on your PC, stealing all the saved passwords from every browser (this is very easy to do once you have accessed the PC!) and also any other Identification details you might have on the PC, including your contacts and addressbook from most email or addressbook programs, especially the built in Windows ones!
Advice now is to go and change the passwords for every site you go to that is important to you. Banks, ebay, paypal, etc etc etc!
Do it NOW!
I recorded some of the call…got him to call me back in ten minutes (hoping to somehow find out who they were and to give me time to prepare a network monitor for finding their IP when they tried to connect to my PC) and I recorded the second call too if you want to listen and I am sure it will sound very familiar to anyone here…
First Part http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOmm2W91HGM
Second part http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tvu2opH98M
HitMe WithIt You are amazing – Props to you!
I too got a call from "Microsoft" When I pointed out that Microsoft don't call people HE SAID that he was from helppconline and it was illegal for him to claim to be from Microsoft… so I asked him why he had just said he was from Microsoft, he started again.. "I'm from Microsoft and I'm calling about errors on your computer." He told me that there where thousands of errors on my computer.
I asked him to tell me where exactly he was to which he said he was in Luton. His pronunciation was so bad I told him that I didn't believe him… anyway we argued a bit and I tried my best to explain to him that he was a very bad man for trying to scam people. He got upset and hung up on me.
After reading the above comment I regret not doing the same and wasting as much of his time as possible.
Sorry a slight correction to my earlier post – he in fact said that he was Atkin from "Online PC Master" calling on behalf of Microsoft. (he had originally just said he was calling on behalf of Microsoft.
Hey Mike – thank you! I just detest these scammers and what they do SO MUCH I feel it is a duty, if you have any knowledge that can help, to share that knowledge. Plus it makes me feel I have helped people and that's great 🙂
I was so annoyed when I messed up and let him 'get away' though as you can hear at the end of the second clip. Oh well. I haven't tried the telephone number he gave yet…I thought it was made up but after researching a bit, it seems these folk are usually 'apparently legit businesses' who claim they only 'offered you security services and you wanted them!'. to that end they think they can claim to be legit and some have been known to try and defend their position against lots of complainers.
Unbelievable really huh.
I'm glad you got away though and didn't get scammed. Each person that we can help save from this stuff, is one less for them to rob.
So props to you to my man!
I keep getting phone calls from Indian-sounding people telling me to run the Windows event viewer on my PC. Pity I don't use Windows. One I spun along for about 20 minutes by not being able to follow his instructions (not surprising – Linux looks very different from Windows). Eventually he asked if I was using Windows and hung up abruptly when I said not.
Another time a woman spun me the same spiel. I asked if she thought I was born yesterday. She hung up abruptly, too.
Hi I got a call from Lisa Richards last night saying she was from Microsoft and that she had had a call from my ISP about the faults on my PC,she offered my a £15 bonus on the software that would cure the problems on my machine.I did all the things she told me to do,she showed me a menu of Microsoft software I could have free of charge worth thousands of pounds,instead of £94 I would only pay £79,asked for my card details I said NO I would think about it,she said to ring her on 08009770035,she has just phoned again my wife answered said I was out.Lisa is phoning again tomorrow at 1800.I will now be able to quote some of your messages,as you all say " IT IS A SCAM"
Oooh – the buggers. I almost got sucked in, but I knew better.
I've had several calls from HelpPcOnline recently. The first one I terminated without warning within about a minute because I was feeling impatient, and was in a rush. I think I've also had a few silent calls from them recently. But the second one with a voice on the end, which I took just now, I decided to go along with. Both calls came from people with an Indian accent, incidentally, but I chose to give this one a fair hearing at least.
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As with others here, I too was told that my ISP had contacted them, reporting problems with my PC. I almost believed that because, not only has my browser been freezing a lot lately, but only 3 weeks ago, I changed ISP, so I thought maybe it was feasible. As it turns out, it was just a buggy update to my AVG Free Anti-Virus software that was causing problems (their SurfShield utility was seriously affecting my browser's performance while on Facebook, and, once disabled, things improved). The caller then told me to install their "Swift Health Check" software (which is apparently "For XP Only", so it says, although I'm running Vista). I did that, perhaps foolishly (I'll be getting rid after I've finished this!), and ran it, to be told I have no anti-virus software or firewall running! I knew that to be rubbish – I even checked to make sure. AVG Free Anti-Virus 2011 (the most up-to-date free version available!) and Windows Firewall are running and active. After trying to win me over with sweet talk about what was available for free, money started to come into it, along with 12-month subscriptions. Alarm bells!!
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Then came a transfer to a supervisor, or the "enforcer", as he probably ought to be known. At this point, I Googled "Help PC Online", and came across this site. I started skim-reading these comments here (thanks, everyone!) – it was something useful to do to pass the time while he was blabbering on. As soon as he asked for my e-mail address, that's when I had to start asking questions of my own. I wanted to know who he thought my ISP was. He couldn't tell me – just gave me a list of ISPs they're supposedly in contact with, amusingly NOT including my own, Sky Broadband. More alarm bells! No doubt at this point, alarm bells were ringing for him too. I wanted to know how he got my phone number, and he just kept going on about some random database it had put on. Alarm bells were ringing so loudly for him, he then asked me if I was registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). I said I am (and I really am), and then he couldn't get off the phone quickly enough. Sprung!!
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(… continued from previous comment)
After dialing 1471 after the call, it was curiously an 01935 number, which is my own local area code, but then with only 5 digits following it (98223), extremely unusual these days – most numbers are 6 digits long after the area code now. Not sure what to make of that, but I'm sure it's some way of avoiding flouting the regulations in this country, by providing a phone number when making cold calls.
Anyway, I'll report them to the TPS now, even though HelpPcOnline said they were putting me on their Do Not Call list, and we'll see if that helps to generate a TPS investigation.
Remember everyone, the key is to register with the TPS (http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/), and if you receive a dodgy call from a company based in the UK, tell them you're on the TPS list – they'll soon leg it.
just received a phone call from "microsoft windows" a young man, Indian Accent, (what a surprise)named andrew bliss with the employment number "510" he informed me that my firewall was down and that he could fix it. He told me to turn my computer on and he would talk me through it. UH, NO!!!!! I asked him for a number to call him back on but could not get through for a short time. When I did get through someone else named James answered and "found" Andrew for me. He came on the line and asked for ID numbers and passwords so he could fix everything and install a program called event viewer. UH, NO!!!!!! I tried to call microsoft but as usual all I got was a call waiting spiel. So sick of this. Wish someone could do something to rectify it.
Julie 16th Nov 10
I forgot to tell you the number this Andrew Bliss gave me to verify him. 02 80060312
I was just given the same number this afternoon. I'm going to see if the police are interested, as the number is 'real' and they answered with 'Microsoft Support Centre' or some such…
I would be just the same as everyone here, but why are we so polite? This is an unsolicited scam call – just hang up! If they call back, ignore it or tell them they are wasting their time.
Hi,I also got a call from some one helppconline.com and they said that my computer is infected.I didn't believe as i was having best anti-virus software .They asked me to go to event viewer also i was shocked to see the list of failures.But i didn't believe them. I dropped the call. Then i tried to investigate the issue and found that yes my computer was having problem.I got a call from them after 3 days though i was not interested but i went for 3 months of subscription.I was shocked to see the dedication and efforts by the agents who worked on my computer. I am really happy and i feel that there are still few companied whom we can trust.
i have also got the call from the same company 3 days before and they were also pitching me the same and i have got the subscription for 6 months ,and they have fixed my computer with agent name ALEX ,he was really sweet spoken and he really fixed my computer ,left a callin card on my computer . I was pleased to talk to a Indian first in my life and he was good with me really.
Maria – I hate to disagree, but the 'list of failures' you describe was almost certainly generated by the 'event viewer' simply to alarm you. Helppconline were able to fix them, because they weren't there in the first place!
If you've still got 'event viewer', uninstall it – it's a window into your computer for scammers like helppconline. And then do a full scan with your normal AV…
This morning I had the call, he made me run 'eventvwr' and i could see in Windows log many yellow triangles and red exclamation marks, and the Indian guy offered to fix them, told me at no cost to click on those errors. Then i was saved by the bell, had to hang up on him asked him to call later. Now I see all these warnings from you people. My question is: Have I already make my laptop vulnerable by just typing 'eventvwr' in my 'run'box? I haven't run any software or was redirected to any website. Please help and tell me what to do now. Not very computer savvy.
umm how do you uninstall 'event viewer'? x
This has happened to my Friend yesterday. Fortunately she told the caller to go away, only not as politely as that.
I just had a call too. Indian accent, same story as the others. I knew right away as I fix and build computers and know a thing or two about all this stuff. they picked the wrong number this time but I was still unable to get any idea on who they are or where they are working from! I planned to let him connect to my PC but I accidentally scared him off before it got to that and he hung up!
just had a call from helppconline.com They claimed that microsoft had sent them details of all my problem reports and that they would fix these for free for 1 year. They wanted to access my computer remotely but i didn't let them. I constantly questioned them about the company but they just kept rambling on and when i said i would check out the company another guy came on who was apparently the owners brother. He told me that the company was built on reputation and did i think he was going to get rich by stealing £79;99 from me,but because istill wasn't going to part with my hard earned there and then he said if i phoned back 1 second late it would be double. Of course i told him to stick it where the sun don't shine. PS they phoned back 5 mins later but i had went out.
Tina
Had a call from Lisa Richards last night claiming all of the above, Just happens that I was having problems with my browser yesterday, coincidence? Firstly she told me that she had received a complaint from my provider TalkTalk, today it was Microsoft, how did you get my telephone number I asked, I'm ex directory? From your registration details when you bought the computer she says. Daaah! Where are these people getting our details from, that's what I'd like to know. I said I'd call her back after I'd finished scanning my computer, she even gave me her telephone number, but thanks to you lot I won't be bothering.
I had a similar call just now. He said he was working in an Indian call centre and that microsoft had asked him to call me as my computer had sent a message to them from my computer saying that it was running a bit slow. Luckily I was very suspicious as in my 20 years of computer literacy I have never had such a call. He asked me to look at this web-site https://www.helppconline.com/ to verify him, but I still wasn't convinced. I asked who exactly who was paying for him to fix my PC, to which he just laughed and then asked me to press some buttons, to which I refused and said that I was quite happy with how things were running and goodbye!
I also received a telephone call from a company called help pc online. They seemed to claim that they had had a note from my internet supplier that I was having problems with the speed on my computer. I explained that I knew a lot about computers and that if there was anything wrong I could sort it. I have heard a lot recently about scams through a phone call. So I asked them who my provider was and they told me that I was with talk talk (I havent even been with these for over a year). Obviously alarm bells were ringing then.
The second time they rung (within a week of the last phonecall) my husband answered the phone. He was on there for about an hour. Them telling him what to do (he didnt do anythin pmsl) Just went along with what he was saying. They then said to him look all your files are being deleted off of your computer. We had the last laugh because he wasnt doing anything apart from talking down the phone pmsl. At the end they said they wanted us to take out a subscription with them, when my husband said that he would think about it, they insisted NO YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT!!!
Please beware these scams, there are a lot of vunerable people out there. Just pass on the message to others.
Um i got a call just 20mins ago from the same people your saying 'helppconline' they said my pc was running slow? saying i should download it.. but i was kinda dumb so i downloaded it they said that my firewall was bad… lmaao wen they were talking to my mum i checked my firewall it was working fine.. i'm a teenager btw. before they suggested 'fixing' the problem i wrote 'helppconline scammers' then relised it was a scam i told my mum and we hung up.. i scanned on my norton now so the downloaded virus is NO MORE! take that phone scammers. :]
Indian accented Lisa Richards also tried to cone me…… A techy called john…..also sonding Indian…….said he cd help solve all problems for a nomianal price of £6.53…….. This amonte dto 80 in the end. I told them I will be paying nothing and he wasnt pleased……Bye the way I heard lots of backgrond noise and hindi in the background!! They said they were an American company!! I definitelt think this is a scam.
I've just had a second phone call from these guys last one was a couple of months ago. The guy claimed that my ISP had got them to call me because I had a computer 'running slow' (and on probing that my ISP had discovered this because I had visited a website that had detected it and the information was forwarded to them ). When asked who my ISP he did the cold reading this of chanting the largest ones.
If they ring again I may string them along for an hour or so.
I just had something similar last Saturday, Indian accent, very hard to understand, said was from Microsoft, (name Tim Brown) pc running very slow and had so much wrong with it they didn't know how it was still running! then put me onto a senior 'techncian' with company called e-prosolutions in London, even gave me an ID number and a customer service number. gave me a 6 digit code to use for future reference. another Indian sounding chap came on and when i asked him if i would be charged he said yes, one-off payment of £59, and when i told him no he hung up promptly. they did get remote access to my pc for a while tho until i became suspicious and now i feel such a fool!! luckily it all seems to be ok up to yet tho.
Yes it's me again from that last post same name etc. x]
well guess who called me again? it was helppconline!
this time an indian man calling me about the same problems with my pc. i thought i would play a little trick on them so i responded to everyword they asked i jsut replied yes. i didn't tell then what kind of computer i had what security system etc. then they asked me to go on to their website so i did. then they told me to download their software. i pretened to do that. i just pretended to click on download and told them all the things etc. (here's the fun part) so they said click (start the prosess) so i did (pretending of course) so then i asked them what company do you work with and they said microsoft. so i just said um no you don't. i said microsoft said you were phone scammers i told them to fuck off or i'd call the police on them and they hung up. fool me once shame on me fool me twice SHAME ON YOU! 🙂
Had a call yesterday at my home in Essex 16 Dec 2010 from a Victor P John of Helppconline. He said he was representing Microsoft and other service providers and that he had been informed by them that some of the software on my PC was running slow. His general convesation was about the service they could offer 24/7 and casually mentioned an upfront fee of £79 which if I typed in their webaddress would give me access to their application form. I waisted about 20mins listening to this and then asked him if this was in fact a sales call and asked if they are offering a service on behalf of my service provider or Microsoft. He was none commital on this, I have not given Helppconline any monies as this seems to be purely a smooth talking sales ploy, highly unethical. I then hung up. Have reported this to Trading Standards.
Just had a call my self. An indian guy asking to speak to the lady of the house, claiming he works for a global company that has had reports that my computer is running slow and i have a trogen virus. I then questioned who he was, who he was working for and if i did have any virus how on earth would he know. his answer was unclear and i then told him you don't have a clue what your on about, i have a mac, then he hung up. defo a scam.
Hi I live in Devon and I have just this minute had a phone call from an Indian sounding bloke Telling me about the problems that are going around at the moment with all computers and that even though all my protection is working fine my computer is running slow. He wanted to do a health check on my computer which would take 5 mins He asked me to sit by my computer and follow his instructions there and then So i told him I could not and he is ringing me back in the new year. Bet he doesnt and if he does I shall just be putting the phone down. When I dialled 1471 the number just called was unavailable but my phone had luckily detailed it in recieved calls This is the number that came up on caller display 2538020308. Couldnt really understand what he was saying and also the company he worked for so I am just glad I said I couldnt do the Health check there and then especially after reading all the previous comments .
Just had an unsolicited call from Lisa at pchelponline stating my isp had requested they call me to fix my pc as it was running slow. Definitely from an Indian call centre using an 0808 BT freephone no.
*** For the PC inexperienced "event logger" is a Windows management process resident in the background usually used by enginneers and admins for checking on Windows.Just because it is showing yellow or red symbols doesn`t mean your PC is about to die!!! It does indicate possible problems that you can usually sort by running windows repair programs or checking on Microsoft help forums.
I get these calls on a regular basis today the company name was PC ONLINE CURE, OR CURE PC ONLINE.
Same as everyone else, your pc is running slowly, how do you know that? Our R&D team found this, really??
I then ask many questions and the woman realises this is going nowhere and hung up
I get these calls regularly, new compnay name ofr this scam is CURE PC ONLINE OR PC CURE ONLINE.
Total scam tell them where to go, after making them hang on for 20 minutes of course!
had a call from a firm claiming to be working with microsoft called 24/7 basic gear the name of caller was frank morrison. he said was my computer running slow and having any problems. i have had some problem with internet shutting off and very slow. i have no phone in room with screen so he gave me a number to call back 0161.408.4448. befor i phoned back a woman called her name was sierra parker said she was head tec. and told me to give her my email add. so she could forward instructions that i needed to do. i gave her false addres. so dont get caught its a scam. both people i spoke to were indian.
Just had the same experience as every one else. Thought ititially it was my internet provider, went through all of the checks with him, saw nearly 9,000 "errors" and then when the "sting"came got a bit suspicious. he wanted just £6 per month for 12 months. Then asked for my E Mail address. I said he must know that if my provider had informed him. He quoted data protection so I said I would check with my provider and call him back on the free phone 08009770035. Then I was asked why I needed to do this. More suspicious. Thanked him and hung up. THANK GOD !!
I had a main line phone call from HELPPCONLINE my husband thought they said they were from o2 taking over pc maintainence. I was told to download a file but my Mcafee security blocked it because it was a TROJAN – If you receive this call please beware
Called by someone from helppconline today. The line about being told by our IPS that our computer was running slowly seemed plausible because it is. But then, of course, it is such a general complaint that it's probably a fairly good bet. On my way out so I said I couldn't stop. Man asked when he could call back. Told him on Monday but then came the suspicious bit. He asked how I spelled my name so I said "Don't you know what my name is then? How can you know my phone number and know I've got computer problems if you don't even know my name." He got really irritable, saying "I'm only asking for your name, not your bank details." Why I didn't just give my name as 'Sodoff' I don't know. But after getting him to repeat the name of his organisation, where he was calling from (Crawley, apparently) and a website address so I could check it out I told him the real one.
I got one of these calls yesterday and fell for it as my computer has been running slowly for a while. Stupidly I did download teamviewer as suggested and let him have access to my laptop. He opened eventviewer and commented on all that was there. He then startted saying my computer was at risk and that my virus checker was no good. He tried to persuade me to buy another one with a 10 year subscription. I stalled for time and said I would consider it but I was not buying anything there and then. He said he will call me back at an agreed date.
However I am concerned that I have left my computer open to them and any information that is on it. Also I am concerned that if I log on to my bank / paypal etc that I am opening a door to them and if I change passwords that they will be aware of that too.
I cannot do a clean install of windows as the laptop was given to me 2nd hand and I do not have a windows cd.
another one from Christopher Smith at pchelponline……….same 8009770035 number again,
wanted £79 for a contract……………………kept him on phone for a good 20 mins,kept asking him to repeat himself and asking loads of stupid questions trying to sound really interested before telling him 2 git.
I have just had another call from an Indian lady – I posted already about this 23 weeks ago – I have told them to remove my details from their database but I doubt if this will stop them. It just struck me this time about the name of the company 'Helpp CON line' – this is just what it is!
Phew I have just got off the phone with someone making the exact same claims to me saying that my laptop woud die in the next 3-4 days if i didnt have it serviced. (for £80) when i said that i would rather discuss this with my partner (who is an IT/internet provider engineer) and the bloke told me that I should be able to make my own decisions!!! – good point – but i rather i got his advice than some strangers!!! Just googled the phone number he gave me and it lead me to this page. thank good i didnt say yes!!
Hi all
just got off the phone with a very heavily accented woman and then her supervisor as I was asking too many uncomfortable questions.
the usual M. O. the number listing is 09141 401414 they have been trying to contact me for a couple of weeks.
what concerned me was that they knew my name and address, my land line number and allegedly my email address, why? because the only place I use my real name is on internet things, my billing and financial dealings are all in my old married name as I am too lazy to change them, I was wondering how they had my name, address and phone information and came to the conclusion that it must be one of the following who has a leak
linked in or productionbase the reason they have my CV which is there for public display.
anyway I took up a whole load of their time and said I would get back to them after I had contacted Microsoft and asked them how they had obtained such sensitive information about me.
Yep..get these calls at least once a month now, I just tell them I dont have a computer, notebooks,laptops etc. Indian accents,men and women. Not sure how to stop them. The whole household is savvy thank goodness. I dont even let them get as far as what might possibly be wrong. They mention *We are from whatever the scam name for the day is* and I mention the above…
This afternoon I received a phone call from a woman named Lisa who said that she was from MS IT export. It was an international phone call, and sounded as if it was from a call centre because of the background noise. The woman had an Indian accent, so I assume that the call was from India. She confirmed my name and address and said that she was calling because I was a registered customer of windows and she understood that I was having problems with the running of my computer. I was puzzled about this at first but I have actually been having with my laptop running very slowly recently. She said that she would provide help over the phone to make my computer work better if I could go and log into it. I asked if it was free of charge and she said yes. However, I was starting to smell a rat and said I couldn't deal with it straight away. She said that she would phone back in 1 hour. During this time, I fortunately found your website and this confirmed my suspicions that it was a scam. She rang me back but I said that I had decided that I didn't need any help and rang off. She was very plausible and I am glad that I found out what was really going on before it was too late!!
Hi, I had one of these calls this morning, as I used run a computer system for a very large company myself I didn't fall for it. It was an Indian sounding lady and whilst I told her to get lost in so many words I do wonder how many uninitiated people do get taken in, and warn everyone never ever give out any information to anyone who rings you or download anything to your PC that you yourself have not requested. Personal PC's & laptops do not need anyone else telling you what to install. Take care out there all.
hello my lass just fallen for this scam so they still on the go
12/02/11 (what actually happens she got to there site and done what they asked her to do but she never gave bank details) they should be phoning back soon to speak to me this could be fun
My friend just got a call from this place and nearly went through the whole process until i told her to turn it off…..is she ok or does he still have controll of her laptop!
hahaha i just had simon smith call me for 15 minutes. Simon with a heavy bangalor accent cant believe they are getting away with this i just lead him alone for 15 minutes and then hung up cant wait for him to call back now.
Strange .How can u tell where a person is from just from his accent.Forget about the country you know the state as well..You should be in the next James bond movie.
Hiya, yeah i got pulled into this scam today… feel really foolish. But i didnt get as far as giving any details, but they had control of my computer and a soon as i realised I turned it off. Now the questions is do they still have control over my pc? please help, cause i'm really worred
Everyone: I want to say thank you very much for this site. I have just been speaking with an Indian sounding guy with call centre noise from HELP PC ONLINE and then I looked it up and found this. He was on the phone for half an hour almost! IThank you so much for sharing your experience everyone and for warning me. I have experienced the same things as people are writing here. I said "No thanks I'll pass" and ended the call.
THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR WARNINGS HERE. If I hadn't found this place I may well have parted with my cash!
The Indian guy with call centre noise in the background kept saying my computer has been running really slow (when it hasn't really!!!) and "don't worry, today we are going to fix all your problems". He said this phrase many times!
Just had a call from helppconline.com – suggested they received an error report from my ISP and suggested I go to the website and download a program to test my pc for antivirus and the fact that my firewall was down.
On asking various questions i.e. who my ISP was and that how did they get my number etc and the fact that I work in the industry – they put the phone down. I also had pointed out this is a scam and was repoted last summer in teh Gurdian.
Please be carefull and do not give nay details as the ISP will contact you directly and not through a 3rd party.
I just received a call saying they had a report that my computer was running slow and as i’d had that problem and sent an error message i nearly fell for it. They told me to open my browser, go through google and search helppconline.co.uk. I have to say thank you because when i did search the 3rd in the list was this site saying scam. I told him that i’d seen this and was going in to read it that’s when he sounded unsure of himself and kept trying to get me to enter the other site so it told him i’d contact microsoft microsoft myself and hung up. I have never fell for scams before and i think i would have fell for this if i didn’t see your site thank you.
i just got the exact same thing. person said her name was LIsa. I was trying to get a return phone number to report it to the police. i was googling this scam as they were talkingto me, and they must have heard me becuase they hung up on me
Had a call last night told them to ring back today as I was busy as I thought it sounded odd. I wanted to check it out glad I've found this warning.
We just got away (I hope) without being scammed. Got a call from 'asian callcentre' stating that there was a problem with out BT line, some reference was made to microsoft too – the accent was bad. I went the the motions of stating that 'how did I know she was calling from BT' she put me on to her supervisor. I went through the same with her, by this tme by boyfriend was getting annoyed so I handed the call to him. Ironically, he got suckered in!!! the number was 09141 401414 .
She had control of the computer briefly, so my boyfriend could see that there were lots of viruses etc. At that point our firewall popped up with a warning. The woman got flustered and started shouting then hung up. We weren't asked for card details so I think perhaps the scam was cut short. We uninstalled the programme shewas trying to install, I called my back and BT and changed all my passwords (email, paypal etc etc) just to be safe. Hopefully we made a lucky escape. I just feel so bloody annoyed that we let it get that far.
Gutted, I did get caught. I have had lots of trouble with connection .phone and broadband and had just finished talking with TalkTalk. when they called. As the phone line was really bad and computer irratic I fell for it all. However. they installed Avira security that i now see is one of the better ones. They left no sign of viruses. The scam is that they pretend to be Microsoft and also I must have let slip I had been talking with Talktalk. So, they said they had been directed by them. anyway. Have now uninstalled all there calling cards etc and changed my passwords. Just been to the bank to get my bank card stopped and a new one just in case.
Just had a call from a "Michael Narona" claiming to be Microsoft in Luton. I knew what this was straight away so had a bit of fun with him. Told him I had several PCs, lied about the operating system, questioned him about viruses, made him feel like I thought he was an expert. Said I couldn't get the Teamviewer website open (needed to control the PC). Found this discussion thread then said re-boot was slow and asked him to hold. Left the phone next to the radio so he listened to Mark Radcliffe for 10 mins then I think he realised he'd been rumbled and hung up.
This happened to me a week ago. I like to think I'm not gullible but they were so convincing I allowed access to my slow running PC. It would all be done for free and seemed legitimate and convincing because of the references to Microsoft. Diagnostic software was downloaded but because I had so many warnings listed I was passed on to a technician who would fix things for £150.00. When asked how I proposed to pay that’s when I realized I was about to be mugged over the Internet. When I said I was told it was for free I was passed on to another technician who said they were experiencing problems with my email address, which I provided to them, and he would have to set up a temporary email for me. I refused to go any further so they removed the downloaded software. The whole process took over an hour. Because of its slow running I rarely use this PC and now use a MacBook Pro and as a result have changed my online banking passwords.
I just got the 3 call from these guys, I got as far as them asking me to download something, didn't like it so started to question the validity of the site and the software, how he got my number etc and he eventually hung up on me… I went straight onto Google and found this info – glad I did its a definate scam!
I have 3 tactics I use for these calls depending on my mood.
1) Go through THEIR issues with their slow PC asking what operating system they have what software their running etc in response to their questions to me about the same. This can keep them occupied for up to 45 mins at the end of which I say they have already run up a bill of £75 and that they have to give me their bank account or credit card details.
2) Be willing to want to use their services and try to follow their instructions precisely and get them totally confused and frustrated by what I am telling them is happening on my screen. This is becuase I forget to tell them that I'm using a Mac.
3) If I haven't time or can't be bothered I speak very quietly and ask them to turn their volume up. I then blow very hard into a high-pitched dog whistle I have handy for these calls.
More worringly though, I have recently been working with an old couple who accepted the download from one of these chaps and now cannot access the admin facility on their router or restore it to factory defaults. May be coincidence but it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that they have installed some dodgy firmware on it.
Yeah, I got a cold call from http://www.helppconline.com. They said they had received a report from my ISP (or was it Microsoft?) saying that my computer was slow and they were calling me to help. The man had a strong Indian accent and he had a very unprofessional way of dealing me. It didn't look at all like someone working in customers services! He wanted me to download something from http://www.helppconline.com which apparently was to appear in a pop up window. The pop up window never appeared, and he said "Oh my god" (yes!). And then he looked very nervous as if he did not know what the next stop should be. At that point I had realised that this was not a professional service and told him that it was not a good moment for me to do this. Guess what he said? He said "Oh now you are playing games with me huh?" Unbelievable! Then I just hung out. The amazing thing is that we just got this phone line very recently and almost nobody knows it. It must have been our telephone company who sold it.
Looked very nervous on the other end of the phone? 😀 lolz
Last night I was at mom's place and saw her having trouble with pc. I tried to help her but as usual she tries to fix her problems on her own. it was nice to watch her fix the problem with online support from a company called helppconline.
She was happy the way technician guided her step by step. Afterwards she told me that for past 6 months she is using these services and never had to depend on any one else.
Do you work for these people? Or are the friends of yours? THIS IS A TOTAL SCAM. DO NOT GIVE ANY INFORMATION TO THESE PEOPLE. Think about it people, for all the computers out there do you actually think that Microsoft employs the thousands of people they would need to respond to every alert they would get from computers that get a virus? Your computer does not send alerts to Microsoft when it gets a virus it does not send a message to anyone but you. Microsoft would be calling people non stop if this were the case. It is common sense, I know they sound legit but they are not. I told them I worked in tech support and there was no virus on my computer and if there was I would handle it. They called me a liar. Do you think that Microsoft would employ people that would talk like that to “potential customers”?Â
Iv been getting loads of these calls over the past couple of months.On one of thos calls when I refused to give the man my postal details he shouted at me to get lost and slammed the phone down on me. That unfortunatly hasnt stopped them from contacting me. Im now registered woth the Telephone Preference Service.
Have just had a phone call from this outfit (helppconline.com) indian accent said they were based in crawleyand work on behalf of microsoft. She advised she was contacted by microsoft to contact me because of possible problerms connecting to internet etc. She asked what type of conputer and operating system I had.
I advised her, surely, if she was working for/with M/S they would had advised her of my operating system.
When i stsrted asking other questions she got annoyed and put phone down. THIS IS SCAM – BE CAREFUL.
Just got a call from these guys – and Indian chap claiming to be from Microsoft…
I'm on TPS, so and asked for his name, companies name and address. Said I would be reporting him to the authorities fro cold calling. He promptly hung up
I had calls from them some Asian man saying they was from Microsoft and my computer was ruining slow and will crash if I do not do something about it. I told him my computer is is running fast and has no problems but he insisted it will crash if I don't do anything and they can help. I said I have been using computers for over 25 years, programming and fixing them.
He said it is not a con then he said my full name, address, email address. so I told him to F@#$ himself.
I have had the same phone call a last year but it was a well spoken English voice and said I was at my computer witch I was, it was very convincing and said he was from HELPPCONLINE and the site dose exists but it's all part of the scam.
I get 2 or 3 of these a week some times and now as Im retired take a new approach… I am friendly and keep them talking for as long as possible by pretending to be a bit thick and asking them to repeat what they want me to do several times… they are really persistant and patient… but must be really cheesed off after about 30 minutes when I tell them I have been having them on, know they are criminals and have no intention of doing what they ask…. however I tell them not to hang up as Im really lonely and enjoy chatting on the phone and as they are paying for the call and I have plenty of time on my hands Im in no rush… this usually sees them off…. next time I think I may try asking them personal questions .. like 'Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend' see what that does….
I just had a call from a man with a heavy accent (Indian?). He knew my name and said he knew I had a PC and that he was from Microsoft and that if I didn't follow his instructions my PC would no longer have Microsoft programs. I thought it was a scam so I told him I didn't have a PC. He said he knew I was lying and would take my Microsoft programs away and it was my fault. I told him that I didn't have a PC but that my lodger who was a policeman did.(complete lie obviously). He put the phone down but literally 5 minutes later I got another phone call from someone else with a similar accent asking for the "lady of the house" who started asking me personal questions. I put the phone down. These phone calls are disturbing. They are not doing Microsoft any favours either.
I just had a similar call in the UK. They asked for my partner by name.
I was Immediately suspicious but let him ramble on for ten minutes telling me about all the errors and warnings that were threatening my machine (shock ! horror !). He didn't even balk when I told him I'd just installed the latest version of McAfee !
I knew they were going to be asking for money soon and I was getting bored so I just hung up.
I'd be curious how they get phone nos. with names as we're not in the book (who's selling this info on ?)
Just had a call from Cure PC Online (curepconline.com), same old story really. Tagged my partners name onto the end and just asked for Mr X. Went along with it to see what rubbish he wa on about and followed him to Windows Event Viewer. He tried to show me loads of errors which I think will always happen, but of you look at it the system errors on a process due to any number of reasons then runs it successfully a few seconds later so there is no real computer issue.
Anyway he wanted me to go to curepconline.com and connect to a remote technician, YEAH RIGHT. I can only assume that he would then be asking me for money to fix the problem and downloading a load of spyware to steal all my passwords, then the little money I have in my banks!!
WHAT A LOSER!!!!
11/04/2011 And it continues, you all know the story, at the mo they are trying with, "your firewall is not working according to you ISP" . Like hell it's not. After pretending to be at my computer and telling him in event viewer there were 20,000 events, which even if there were so what, he nearly fell of his chair. Same people, helppconline.com Thier terms and conditions state they will have access to your comp so if you did download it get a good antivirus, I like Avast and clean teh system, also use Auslogics defragger and their free registry checker (not the defragger it's not free) Then spybot will sort malware. All that should have you safe. Then you really wnt to change your passwords, also if you use paypal to pay them inform paypal it's a con or your credit card company as you have good protection from them. If you used debit then ring the bank ASAP, change all onlin passwords aswell as the Admin password for you account logon. And make sure you have a good firewall, go to Cnet for a list of good free ones. Good luck everyone.
We have just had a similar call on our landline, saying we might lose our computer if we don't do something about all the errors and viruses on the computer system and i had a big problem, he hadn't heard of one computer with so many faults. The man who spoke in an indian accent went on to ask for 6.63 a month for full security protection and instant help with pc problems. He then passed us onto a colleague who said the fee would be 79.99 one off payment. Alarm bells were ringing and when challenged about the price, the callers attitude changed and became agresive and loud. We hung up.
Looks like the latest is a company , allegedly called computers for speed. Starts off my name is Julian, my arse never known an Asian person called that. Then tells me that there has been a report of 3 people in my area with viruses. Then goes on about how long I have had the computer, then asks me to go start, at this point I ask him if he thinks I live in cloud cuckoo land, and if he really thinks that some random person is going to call me and ask me to do things that will allow him access to my computer he must think I am bloody mad. At which point I suggests he doesn't interrupt me whilst I am ranting on at him, so guess what he hangs up.
Just this minute got a call from an asian guy from so-called helppconline, offering to fix my slow running computer. Didn't like the sound of it from the off. Questioned him on a contact address, phone number and website, saying I wasn't happy about the situation. Whilst he was on the phone, I checked website which flashed up as suspected fraudulent. I then referred to this site, which confirmed suspicions. Told him that I was onto him and if anything further happened, I would be taking legal action. He wasn't nasty about it, but knew it was a waste of time pushing further.
I've had two similar calls in the last couple of days. I think I am immune to these. No reputable dealers selling anything these days are stupid enough to do it by cold calling on the phone. And noone with any sense, and any grain of savvy about identity fraud, would ever give any information to someone if they could not be sure who it was and why they wanted it. So if anyone calls you out of the blue, for any reason whatsoever, they are implicitly asking if you are a fool. I strung these guys along for a bit as I was intrigued about what the scam was as it was new to me. But to a telephone cold caller, I will not even confirm my name let alone anything else.
hi all, thanks for all your info. had one on the phone today. not the first call but today he left a different web address helpandsuport4bc hope this helps
Had at least 60 calls this week from the same shower, was a lot suspicious when he asked for my credit card details but its only £6.63 per month he said, what have you got to lose, a lot, I thought when I found out it was an ongoing "contract". His name this time was Gabriel O Connor strange name for a pakistani, should be a fitting name for a devout christian irishman. I do intend to bring these con artists before the beak and am suprised that microsoft ain't suing the arse off em for using their name, after all they do have the technology to catch em. Needless to say dont fall for it.
just had the same call as everyone else only it was from an Asian accented female called Prescilla. She told me about my ISP reporting problems and also miraculously was able to tell me I had 3100 faults on my system.
After offering a FREE maintenance service that cost a subscription fee of just £6.75 per month (although you couldn't pay it monthly) the asked me to register. I said I wanted a couple of days to think about it at which she passed me over to her supervisor, an Asian sounding man. You could hear him becomming a bit annoyed at my refusal to sign up but in the end agreed to call back in a couple of days.
Meantime, of course I've had a chance to check thm out.
Can't wait for his call!!
had two calls in the last few days. both asian guys said the same thing that they were genuine microsoft certified technicians. They said they were receiving constant error reports from my computer. Dodgy thing is that I have never given my landline number out, my microsoft account is registered at my parents address. When I asked how they had my details they seemed very confused and couldn't answer. I asked what they were proposing to do and they said remote access at which I had the sense to say no thanks. When I said there was no way to verify who they were they kept repeating we are genuine microsoft certified technicians. They were very persistent. Both calls were dodgy from start to finish.
As with all previous comments I just had a call from Lisa Richards about my computer etc etc. My copmuter is running slow and hanging, so thought about subscribing 79.95. As it happens I always give my wrong date of birth to these companies (incase anyone tries to clone my card), which in this instance worked out well, because the card required a security check and I watched as 'Mark' a tech tried to enter my details, which ofcourse was refused. This gave me time to Google this company and check them out, and glad I did. I only use one card for the net and this is now blocked until I call the bank to unblock it, which i'll do in a couple of days.
Just had some indian guy telling me he was from microsoft and my computer was full of errors, went through all the Windows Event Viewer rigmarole. Then wanted me to go to the website so he can sort it out for me, but i kept telling him its ok i will sort it out myself by re-mastering my computer, he was getting quite persistent about it. in the end he hung up.
Just had this lot try this scam with myself. I was fortunate that I had heard about it before, so I decided to have a bit of fun with them. I said the phone was nowhere near the pc, and after each instruction I would put phone on the floor and wait a few minutes while I went off and made a coffee etc. The longest I managed to leave it between instructions was 8 minutes. I have to admit, he was very patient as I managed to string out the call to almost a hour before I got bored and hung up. The scam was exactly as described here, almost to the word.
I live in NZ and I’ve had 2 such phone calls. I had not heard of the scam, but it was abundantly clear to me it was a scam as I dont own a microsoft computer. The scam went along the lines of:
Them: “I’m calling about your microsoft computer”. Me: ” I dont own a microsoft computer” Them: “Don’t you, how old are you” Me: “Thats none of your business, why do you need to know?” Them: ” I like the sound of your voice” Me: “goodbye”
At first I thought it was people try to scout my place to see if I had a computer worth robbing, needless to say I am relieved it is just a over the phone scam- just hope too many people dont get caught out.
Steve_Pin – your comment was genious – wish I thought of something like that!
Hi, helppconline ltd has its registered address with Companies House as 3 Midhurst Close, Ifield, Crawley, West Sussex, RH11 0BS. If you Google Map it, it comes up as a domestic house on a small estate, to me that smacks as a convenience address to set up a scam from abroad, the company was set up in the UK in 2010.
I had what appeared to be such a phone call today (08.07.11.) The caller was willing to give me a return phone number after I challenged him and, in effect, said that I had no proof of him being genuine. From my later research today it appears exactly as given below and elsewhere. Is there anyone to whom I can pass the phone number and report this?
I have a slightly different experience. I did reeive a call from Helppconline and initialy fell for it, with the result that cash was taken from my account. My son told me what a stupid ******* I’d been a few minutes after the initial call and was able to make changes to my PC that prevented further access. As has been stated elsewhere in these posts their written terms state a 14 day abilty to cancell. I therefore e-mailed on these lines, not really expecting to hear from them. Actually I got a phone call from them asking why I wanted to cancel. When I explained they said they would refund the cash, but it would take a couple of weeks. Again I didn’t expect to hear any more
I’ve today noticed that the cash has been refunded.
i have just had a call from these lo,t already knew it was a scam kept him on the line wasting his time i then went on to remind him that all calls are being recorded for fraud and crime prevention and would be passed on as we have made a successful trace on the line all a lie on my behalf he hung up straight away cant wait for the next call!!!!
Another attempt, checked online using their 08009770035 ( must be making money ) number which brought me to this page, thanks. Thought it suspicious, though my pc has been running slow thanks to BT slowhub. Also he left his personal number 02030263248 emm!!!!
In case it helps anyone, the latest company name they are using is Cure PC. It livens up a morning to see how long you can drag the conversation out for.
In case it helps anyone, the latest company name they are using is Cure PC. It livens up a morning to see how long you can drag the conversation out for.
i had this phone call twice now in 4 days. the same man about the same thing. i keep hanging up but he calls me back
Just had the same thing happen to me he wouldnt take no for an answer.
This company have just tried to con my grandmother and i caught him just as he tried to take control of the computer when i came in from work. I asked him what the problem was and he told me a load of bull about 6000 errors on the computer and that he was trying to clear them. I asked him for his company name and address so that I could check that he was legitimate (which i knew he wasnt) but he said that he was not authorised to give out this information, anyway he was having a full blown argument with me over the phone then hung up when i said “could you please repeat that because i didnt understand”
if it helps the phone number was – 0164211
Saturday in the evening i received the call from Sienapp , and they said i have a problem in my computer but i refused to it and told them that there is no such problem in my PC but they insisted and told me that they will show me the problems in my computer as my computer was working very slow so i did according to them and they showed me somany erors in my computer coz of which my computer was very slow. And later when they finish up working on those error , my system was fast and it was very good to use it so Thanks to SIENAPP who helped me.
Sarah Rios
hahahha Funny them basterds I just had a call and given them mouth back wankers Indian Basterds Hindus
Well i’m also an Indian n i really feel ashamed that how sumone would make money like diz but Mr Mall don’t ya abuse every Indian coz every1 are not lky dat so next time be careful about dat . And wot ya think ya british ppl are not wankers ? LMAO ahahaha !!!!!!!!
just happen to me as well i knew there was some thing wrong when they asked me for money i told them where to go and they rang be back i told them again then im reporting them not happy at all got to reset my computer from start
Me too! Two Indian gents involved, salesman and computer tech called “Sam”. My ISP provider had reported a spate of errors from my computer, they informed me, and that they also worked similarly on behalf of BT. Only they (they claimed) were “permitted” to download a suite of Microsoft programs to my PC to clear the 400 viruses and 2,000 junk files they’d found. I’d notice a “real” difference a mere 20 minutes after downloading the MS clutch of virus killers, etc.. For this service a one-off payment of £99:99 would be charged against my credit or debit card. The whole episode began as a cold call to my house phone. Entirely sceptical, after about 90 minutes I told them to call back “tomorrow” and it’s no surprise they didn’t bother. What did surprise me is that they gave me a real company address and Company Registration (No.07390129) for HelpPCOnline. They sounded plausible enough but I’ve never responded favourably yet to a cold call.
I too have just this second come of the phone from a man named Tom. Reg no 07390129. helppconline. I never trust anyone so as i was following his instructions were he shows me all the errors on my computer i was also finding out about the company. thankfully my search led me straight to this site and my suspicions were clarified.
The company want to gain remote access to your computer, something which you should never do. I sometimes allow my step father remote access when i have a problem as he is a computer geek, but would never allow anyone else.
Nothing in life is free. Just put the phone down, don’t be fooled by them!
Just taken a call from these freaks. Told the stupid woman that I didn’t have a computer. That shut her up. Freakin morons. Laughed and laughed down the phone until she hung up
today i was calld by the same freaks
the nunber was 007852269814
but i didn’t strust this and i come from netherlands(dutch)
 I told them to call back in 45 min for my husband but they didn’t
i let my prvider now about this
I was called today by this company … number withheld. Â Telling me exactly as above, but I know enough about computers to ask the right questions which the very nice Indian guy could not answer so I told him I wasn’t interested and my computer is so old if it died I would get a new one under the terms of my maintenance contract.
I received two calls from this company and when I said I would research them first and contact them mnyself they asked to speak to my husband (i’m single). After telling them I was not interested he got a little irate and in the end I put the phone down.
I have fallen for this scam. What do I do now
indian guy called frank called yesturday i started to follow his instructions untill i noticed at the bottom of the page a fee so i told him it wasent working when he told me to connect and played the dizzy routine telling him to call back at 7 when hubby was home, he rang back at 6 and then again today i took his details and said my hubby would ring him
indian guy called frank called yesturday i started to follow his instructions untill i noticed at the bottom of the page a fee so i told him it wasent working when he told me to connect and played the dizzy routine telling him to call back at 7 when hubby was home, he rang back at 6 and then again today i took his details and said my hubby would ring him
If an Indian calls you, order three curries and a nan bread.
i just had a call he told me to look up website and i looked up complaints and started reading all of these to him..lol
We’ve just been called! It’s a scam they called from 0315 7899404
Apparently. He was called Garrent Smith from Microsoft. And from pc help on line
Thanks for all this information. I’ve just been called (in Madrid) by a guy with an Indian accent. I told him to call back in an hour. I did a Google search and found your page. Thank you again!
I just had the same call this evening from someone trying really hard to sound English. Gave me an English sounding name, told me he was from Help PC Online Ltd, based in West Sussex or something along those lines. The call was brief. I told him to go home and re-assess his life and did he really want to spend his days as a conning bas@@@@. He hung up
Well I Just Got Coned To Let Them On My computer remotely.Date 16 dec 2011 .They phoned me had every think ,they needed ,to make me beleve they were msn . Why Microsoft Did Not Tell every One About This ,Con I Do Not Know .    ( Its From James-Redout . Alphonso tobias Tell 033-00010981 )  What Do I Do Now I Told Them That I Had To Think About What He Told Me Befor I Made My Mined Up . He Told Me to Ring Back Later .And It would Cost Me £40 To Get It Sorted Out. I Put The Phone Down And Diconected The Computer From The Net . I Am Using A Diffent Computer Now With XP PRO.  And Not Using The Computer With Windows 7 On .Untill I Can Fined Out What I Can Do About It .Help . Regards Ray.
Well I’ll have to join your club got coned on sat 17/12/2011 by someone calling them self SHANE DAWSON from help pc online acting on behalf of microsoft same story as below after getting a bit heated with him trying to tell him i wasn’t interested i hug up the phone to which he called back with threats to have my details band and black listed by microsoft that i would never get conected again and that as i had shoutedand hung up he would get me charged with being racist. its a SCAM BEWAREÂ
Just wondering if anyone can help?
my mum has just been called by these, a mr steve howard in fact on the following number 0808 2802560, he asked her to follow a series of tasks and as reported errors came up, and then he got disconnected. In the mean time mum phoned me and asked if its legit, so i did a quick search and came across this site.
Anyway, can anyone tell me exactly what the steps are to this scam? Mum cant remember what he asked her to do, or at least cant tell me what she’s done as she’s not exactly computer literate. Is he likely to have remote access, if so what can he do with it? Will remote access work if the PC is powered down? Would reformatting help?Â
Or does the scam work in a way that they offer to get rid of the errors for a price?
Any help would be great, im just phoning this steve in question back to tell him a piece of my mind and to stop calling my mother!Â
Thanks for any helpÂ
 I just got a very simaler call. They get you to punch in EVENTVWR and this took me to EVENT VIEWER PAGE which showed a bunch of yellow lines and some red…he asked me what the nimber was at the top of the page …mine was 389 and he said OH NO! That is very high and your computer could crash at any moment and told me i needed to get warranty on my SOFTWARE LOL…THAT LED ME TO SCAM AS WELL AS SAYING HE WAS SAYING HE WAS  FROM MICROSOFT WINDOWS…As my niece says they never call you and to phone them is hard enough to get a hold of them…Anyway i asked how much and he said $ 100.00 and told me time was wasting so i asked for his phone number and he seemed surprised and again said time was of the essence. I told him that i had a niece that was a computer tech.which she is not and that i wanted to see what she had to say about it and ended the call…I DO NOT THINK THEY CAN GET INFO FROM THE COMPUTER ..But they found a way to show event viewer to people who all have the red and yellow lines that worry people …And also the 2 guys i talked to were of PAKISTANEE decent cause i had a hell of a time understanding them…Just tell your mom to treat any calls as scam…lol..i am going to from now on…The name the guy gave me was Joesph and the number was 1-614-388-8814 but i never called him back as i was worried after my niece told me some calls like that could be expensive with profits going to Joesph and his BAND OF SCAMMERS…OHHH I DESPISE PEOPLE LIKE THIS….THIS WAS IN CANADA …
I had a call yesterday from Michael claiming to calling on behalf of Microsoft. Yes, he was of asian origin! Couldn’t speak English, anyway, he said that they had received reports that my PC is running slow, he was phoning from 085219890146, asked him for his postcode which he gave LE2 0QS and claims that the company is called ‘Help Pc Online Limited’. I played along knowing full well that this is a Scam and he wanted to get remote access to my pc! Asked to speak to his Manager, Jason came on claiming he was in West Sussex and when I asked him where his HQ was he said it was in European Union, please tell your elderley relatives about this Scammer as there will be Vunerable people out there and once they get access to your PC, you can kiss goodbye to your money, credit rating as they can use this info they get from your harddrive to defraud banks etc!!
This is the 3rd call I have had from the Same ‘Michael’Â who does understand that he has no life!
just had Kevin from microsoft on the line, another helppconline operative hung up on him after a short converstaion hung up again when he called back have heard nothing since
They’ve just phoned me, caught me unawares initially but as the conversation progressed I began to get suspicious. They are now openly saying they are not actually from Microsoft, but work on behalf of Microsoft to resolve the problem of corrupt software, and of course they had identified that my pc was in a critical state. They make themselves appear legitimate by giving full company and telephone details : Help PC Online Ltd, 4 Rear ground floor, 100 London Road, Leicester LE2 0QS Tel: 08082802560, or 02030263248. I began to get concerned when she asked me what type of pc I was using, what software, was I a technical person etc; when I told her I had no way of verifying the legitimacy of the call and that I would check out the company and revert, she came on really strong, told me I must not wait because all my data was at risk and insisted I spoke to her supervisor. At that point I knew it was a scam and promptly closed the call. Got on line, found this site and hey ho ….. no surprises, another bummer trying it on !!  Thanks to everyone who posted a note – need to keep the word out there…………
Me too!! Fourth time they’ve rung, on phone for 35mins going through all the things everyone else has. Kept asking how much are you trying to get out of me and was told Microsoft was paying. LIES at the end they said £99. I had my broadband switched off while they were on the phone as I was suspicious of them. Now I have read all of these post I have been proved right they are a scam!!
After loads of calls about mis sold PPI’s, now its my computer is about to die a horrible death. When will something be done to protect us from all these people out to make money through scams.
We are exdirectory and have put a stop to sales calls, but they get round this by being international calls.
GO AWAY and get a proper job, like I have done all my life, and leave me to my retirement in peace!!!
I agree. I suffered yesterday, but extricated my self before continuing. He was not pleased.
Larry.
ive just been told im going to be reported to microsoft and will be banned from using it again if i dont pay 99 to sort out my pc probs i told the indian chap in a nice way go do what u got doÂ
ive just been told im going to be reported to microsoft and will be banned from using it again if i dont pay 99 to sort out my pc probs i told the indian chap in a nice way go do what u got doÂ
Exactly the same has happened to me – a person named Sandra Lawrence – prob a false name – telephoned me last thursday 26/01/2012, a voice with Indian accent, saying they had reports from Microsoft that my computer was in a mess and consequences dire if I did nothing about it. I am 66 years old, physical and mental health problems and I was duped and pressured out of nearly £100. Everyone watch out for these people who say that they have a base at 3 Midhurst Close, Ifield,  Crawley. They are unprincipled SCAMMERS.
I have just had that call too. Â Initially they said they were calling from Microsoft and when I questioned they said the name of the company was Help PC Online. They asked me if I was running a computer with a Windows operating system – I said no, then they went on to try to tell me they had received complaints about my computer running slow, from a friend or neighbour and my ISP.
I said ‘sorry you asked me if I had a PC running windows and I said no’ he said ‘stop interrupting me’.
I could tell right away it was a scam, but I wanted to find out more so that I could report them.
I just spent 30 mins typing in the wrong information. Man was my new buddy angry.
I have him calling back on a “more secure number” because we don’t want to be tracked.
If he calls tomorrow I’m going to threaten him to keep our gay relationship silent.
I got called 12 times in rapid succession with words and abuse because i refused to listen to what he had to say about my computer not working correctly, there must be something we can do to prevent such abuse,why are indian call centre allowed to get away with it?????
I have been called twice today, both times by what sounds like an Indian person claiming that my PC had serious problems that had been downloaded over the internet and that my PC was about to crash and die, he claims he is a microsoft 35 technician who can fix my PC if i follow his instructions, I questioned him more about who he was and where he was he claimed he was from bristol, his name was Gregg Morrison!!!!!!!!!! and his contact number is 02080998907. These people should be stopped they are very rude and persistant. Â Â
PChelp online Victor P John Just tried that woth me.. They said they got a report on behalf of Microsoft that said my pc is running slow. They hung up when I said i worked for the Ethal Haking and Fraud division or the local Poolice department
14th Feb 2012. These unspeakable morons are still at it. Do they really make enough money? This is third time In four months that I have been rung. This time it was an asian Brian Jones from Windows soft!!!! I am afraid I was most unlady like and told him to p…..s off. However would not be suprised tohear from someone again. I think it is more than one lot of idiots. Beware if you are a new user!!
15th Feb 2012 – they tied up my phone line for 3/4 hour, and were shocked when I told them I used the PC for work – office at home – not just for the internet. They seemed surprised when I said I wanted to see everything in writing before handing over £99. They’ve tried to access the computer twice in the last fifteen minutes, but I rejected the access. I don’t know how much of what they told me was true, but I wasn’t about to accept their services without checking them out. And this site has more than confirmed my suspicions. But who do we complain to? I don’t trust anyone else who is advertising that they will clean up my computer, at any cost!
I got the call today, 16th Feb 2012, Asian-sounding gentleman purporting to be from Microsoft. However, when challenged, he said that he was working “on behalf” of Microsoft as their “authorised repairers”, a company called Help PC Online Ltd. He, however, was phoning from a call-centre in India.
Gave me the spiel about having been notified by my ISP that my computer was causing problems, running slowly etc, etc – just like everyone else posting here – but was initially very cagey about telling me what it would cost to fix my problems.Â
Very persistent, even when I purported to be involved with IT in my day job (which I’m not – just an experienced amateur) he still kept banging on about how I needed to sort out my problems & didn’t seem the least bit put-out when I questioned the sanity of allowing a complete stranger to take full control of my PC by remote access!!
In the end I got bored of the game & told him, politely, that I wouldn’t be requiring his offering – used up half an hour of his ‘phone bill, though & gave me some enjoyable entertainment!
Steer WELL CLEAR of calls like this. If you have any PC problems, find a local, reputable PC repairer or even the Tech Guys @ PC World (& that’s saying something!!)
I had a call on saturday (25/2/12) sounded very genuine and not being too computer literate followed his instructions, saw the stopped running and errors (hundreds) but then got fed up of talking to him and hung up. I didn’t give him any bank details or credit/debit card numbers etc. But did I give him access to my computer, will this give him access to personal details and online banking? Have they corrupted my computer now and what were the error notices? I switched the computer off when I hung up and won’t put it back on til I find out more info, can anyone advice me please I would be very grateful?
It’s still happening, so presumably enough people are falling for it to make the scan worthwhile. It’s the 3rd time in as many months that I’ve received a call, so I recognised it as a scam immediately. I kept him talking as long as possible pretending to type in his commands and inventing all kinds of “error messages”. After half an hour he said he will have to do some research and call me back. If he does I’ll have a new set of “errors” for him to puzzle over. I wonder how much more of his time I can waste.
Graham I love it, may do the same as a rather rude fellow named ” Steven Howard” has been talking to me for about 10 mins and is supposedly going to call back any moment.
When he calls back, ask him where he is calling from.  I was told the UK and then Leister.  But no country lol  I don’t think they realize that the UK is made up of a bunch of countries.  It is obvious they are reading from a script and have no idea about where they say they are calling from.  Im so sick of people calling my house for crap….I told the duct cleaning guy to stop calling also if I want my ducts cleaned I will call and ask for it. Cripes
Im laughing because I just got my third phone call from these idiots in about 6 weeks and this is the 3rd time I have wasted as much of their time as I can. Â Each call I figure out how to waste more of their time. Â This time he asked in his thick indian accent, why do you abuse me? (I had just spent 20 mins making stuff up for him and then said, oh Windows oh, I don’t have a computer with windows on it….I don’t even have a computer” lol) I told him after he asked about me abusing him that he’d better not call here again……but they will…. and I will continue again as will you…..hehe
March 1, 2012 this scam is still happening. Just got a call today from india claiming that my computer was sending corrup information to the internet and that I needed to fix a bunch of file problems. This shmuck wanted full access to the computer (NOT HAPPENING). Asked his name/company/phone number if it helps he said his name was Ricky Bell Supervisor of help pc online #1-877-849-2135. Thanks to this site I see that it is a scam and will not allow access, although I was thinking that it may be a scam as he would not give a price range to fix or anything. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS SCAM!!!!!
I just got off an hour long call with this ‘company’!! I had difficulty understanding them and believed they were from Microsoft…when they said they could ‘fix’ my computer for $139, I said I wanted to check them out. I ended up with the Manager on the phone…extremely rude man!!  Gave him ‘hell’ for his attitude, etc. and hung up on him!!  They eventually identified their Company as: helppconline Ltd. and gave me the telephone no: 1-877-849-2135 (which of course I’m not calling!)  Beware of this company don’t even talk to them! I think my blood pressure is off the scale at the moment! Â
Just got off the phone with the same lot.
I am old and computer naive, and I went with them for some time, until they started talking about renewing my software warranty, which is apparently going to crash any moment.
I left it there but they are very persuasive.
Just got a phone call, I was really convinced, but Frank and Jason both sound like the same person.Â
Lisa Richard ( although I’m supremely questioning it is her real name!) calling from Microsoft, then said it was from Help PC Online, told me her # 1-877-849-2135, office #4 Century House 100 London Rd Leiscester UK. So as I am on the phone, I Google “Help PC online” and this comes up! They tried to play it off saying, anyone can writer a blog and say anything they want!
I’ve had over 12 calls in the last three weeks and hung up every time, although today I actually litened to them… what a farce….. he said that my pc could die at any moment and be unrecoverable and when I said that I’d call him back when I had more time, he threatened to withdraw my Microsoft licence !! Don’t fall for it. In fact, keep them on the phone as long as you can, it’ll cost them money in the long run.Â
I had a call from ‘helpconline’ today and went for the windows event viewer carry on whereupon I saw all those errors on my computer. What got me was the confidence trick of saying their call was not a sales call, then asking me for £99 for a year’s service. At the mention of money, I turned down any further communication. They gave their company number as 08000488106. Clearly they were not from Microsoft but I could have been taken in as they did sound genuine up to the point where I started to argue and then a lot of confusing waffle about scammers came on. No way would I give my bank details.
Had a beauty from this company yesterday. An Indian chappy he was and could barely speak English. Whenever I asked a question all he responded was “you have problems with your PC Sir.” I asked him what my ip address was, and ofcourse he gave the wrong details. Next question…what operating system am I using? He go that wrong too.
Kept him on the line for about 20 minutes, then gave him a load of abuse. Have to say, it ruined my evening and slept on it. Feel pretty bad for those who have been caught out.
Cant believe the cheek of these people. Just had a call from an Indian woman with a very strong accient from House PC Online Ltd telling me Microsoft had received over 40 error messages in the past 6 months from my PC even though we have only had it for 3. I told her to call back and speak to my husband as I didnt trust her. I asked for her name and contact details – Juilette Brown (yeah right). She didnt even know what Norton Security was. I wonder if she calls back.
Just had a call they only called about 8 weeks ago I asked for callers name and number first Indian I’ve heard of named Martin James mind and he gave 0800 048 8106 I did let him go on for about 15 minutes at the end he said why do you want my  name for and I replied that he asked for me by name the bloody cheek of it then he gives a false name.  Karen Ncle
just had a indian ring my home phone , he was claim that my internet has been hacked and my windows live will stop my computer, i said that is very strange as i havent used windows live for over 4 years and he asked what software iam i using and i said you dont need to no that , he also said you computer which is on windows xp will shut down , i said laughing down go away and never ring this number agian. my pc is very upto date i smelt the scammer straight away when the man tried to be english .
Just got a call with this exact scam, I make computers for a living and he was telling me I had no knowledge of how to make a computer and that I was a 18 year old boy(I’m 25). He was telling me to go onto my computer and do all these things (I wasn’t listening) as we have had 20 calls from these people before, I threatened him about that we will find out who he is and we will take out a law suit on him for harassment.Â
Damn & blast I did get partly conned by these people. “He” used the working for Microsoft line and sure enough I had loads of warnings in the event viewer. I actually let them take control of my PC (idiot!!) before i finally woke up to the scam. They’re very good, knew my name, address & of course my phone. I stopped when they wanted my date of birth, they never got my bank details but like Ljohnston back in Feb I’m now concerned re the control issue. Apart from confirming what a prat I’ve been can anyone offer any advice re that aspect?
WELL, I come home from work this evening and my mum was on the laptop and phone. I asked her what was going on… She said “Microsoft phoned and are checking all these viruses because YOU (me) have been downloading games and films”. Not realising at first that she had infact allowed them access to the laptop and PAID THE £99 FEE! I did not hold back and I said THIS IS A SCAM as soon as she told me the details. She did not believe me at first and had to phone her friend and my uncle for advise. Since we have both stopped out bank cards and her credit card.
If they gain access to the pc which details do they gain?
If you are not up on the whole technology front, please bare in mind – If anyone asks you for your bank details over the phone or to access any of your information/ possessions, DO NOT ALLOW THEM, THEY ARE BAD PEOPLE.
Something similar just happened to me: I got a call from a Gill Cassidy with a strange accent; she said she was from PC support services, from Microsoft Certified Engineer (1855 8473555 ext. NBT3130… number she gave me when I said I did not trust her and would call back), but my phone said caller id unidentified, so I don’t know if it’s the correct number; of course I never called back). I smelled a scam and tried to make her talk.
She said they have been getting online error reports from my computer for several days; she knew my name and she said she got it from my CLS ID number. She told me she would tell me how to fix my computer, to turn it on and she would tell me what to do. I’m bad, I lied to her and pretended I was doing what she told me. She said that there had been something like 27000 computer shutdowns in the USA last year because of this same problem. When I asked about the problem, she said it was too difficult for me to understand, but she would fix it.
Then after getting tired of having her repeat because of her accent, I said thanks, I’ll get my own technician to fix it… she got nasty and asked why I asked her all those questions… I said well lady you’re the one who called, I’m entitled to questions aren’t I? You had me loose time, so I did the same with you. She was kind of mad so I hung up on her… But let me tell you she was convincing and I’m sure she can get people to do everything she says… good thing I’m mostly skeptical…
Is there a place where we can call to accuse these people of fraud???
I had a call yesterday.
Again an Indian accent he said that my details had been past on to them by BT because I was having a problem with my internet connection. Said he worked for for helppconline and told me to run events and I had corrupted files and computer would crash. Tried to prove is was a legit company by asking me to check that the compnay was registered with companies house.
I said I would call back if I needed theit help, what is the number, he said he could only give customer services. he said he would pass me on to a microsoft engineer and I need to install some software for £99.
He became very aggressive when I said no and refused to give my e-mail address. He said “my computer warranty agreement with microsoft will be in breech!!!”.
I have just had a call from Help PC, who said that they were Microsoft approved, and spun the usual story that my computer was at risk.  The caller was a woman with a foreign accent which I could not quite place. I suspected that it was a scam although not one that I had heard of before. So I was non-commital and let her talk on for a while  but when she told me to start following her instructions on the computer I said that I would have to call her back as I was on the phone upstairs  (which was actually true) and not at my computer. I noted down her name - Angela Fox – and the phone number – 0880 048 8106 – and then said that I would call her back after I had consulted my computer engineer. At this point the phone suddenly went dead!! I was lucky in that I had had some previous experience of scammers, but I think that there need to be more publicity about this scam as people can easily be taken unawares.Â
I got a phone call from Windows service center of PCCURE and they were telling me the truth. I am a technician but the steps that he was telling me was absolutely correct. I think that all are not scams. I still remember that I spoke with Roger.We all should not be with the perception that everyone is scam.
Johansson(Sweden)
I have just had one of these calls sounded a little too good to be true so whilst he was gabbling on the phone. Â I did a google search and am I pleased I found this website. Â I was not happy to give him access to my PC. Â Phew good escape I think!!! Â Might not have been so lucky if my husband or daughter answered the call. Â Be ware!
Well, they are still at it!!! Just had a call, about the 6th I’ve had in total. Firstly they said they were got my info from Virgin Media now they are saying Microsoft. I used to work in sales and saw it for a scam straight away. The Indian man became very aggressive when I told him I had just googled the company and that it was a scam, told him if they rang me again I would inform the authorities. I think I might have a nice long chat with him next time he calls (as I know he will). Just to waste their money 🙂
been getting calls from help pc online all week. indian accents. told them not turning on my computer while im talking to them. they got aggressive then asked why i didnt trust them. told them why. tried to convince me by telling me my husbands name. my address and phone number. registered with microsoft in my name. didnt tell them this but asked me to check on their web site. and gave me a free phone number to ring back. 08009770035. tried to ring me again. I am a carer who works in the. districts. i work with vulunable adults. lucky some have asked for my advice before they went a head with this all from the same company. i have let my care company know they have sent information out to those we care for. they dont seem to take no for an answere thou
Had this company on the phone to me on Friday (18 May 2012). Usual “Microsoft Certified” nonsense. Told me to look at the Event Viewer and then to download a program to give them remote access to my PC. For the hell of it, I gave them access to view my desktop only, and not to actually do anything. They talked me through several steps which took about an hour considering their heavily accented voices.
By the end of the phone call they wanted money off me. I’m PC literate myself, and knew what they were getting me to look at was just an information log of programs running or closing successfully. As soon as they mentioned money I told them I wasn’t interested and I’d fix whatever problems my PC has myself. I received a very snotty reply of “we’ll call back Monday if our records still show your errors. Looking forward to my next conversation with them as I’ll keep them on the phone for as long as possible while remaining completely non-committal.
Most companies offering technical support will wait for you to come to them. Please do not get taken in by this obvious scam.
Just had my first experience of this.. a call from “Jason Brown” of Help PC Online apparently based in Crawley. Allegedly my PC was sending app error msgs left right and centre and my ISP wasnted it stopping and they could help… which immediately got me suspicious as my PC has been switched off gfor the last 3 days. When I told him this, his response was that hackers can still get at your PC even when its switched off… Once I’d stopped laughing I asked for company details and a number to call back on (08082802518), then immediately googled and found this.. which confirmed what I already suspected was a scam.
Like previous posters if they ever call back, I will be giving as good as I get… like the idea of introducing myself as a detective from the Fraud Squad.. nice one, that…!
I said I was recording the call, which didn’t seem to phase him at all.
I was just called by this scammer and nearly fell for it! They spent 30 mins without mentioning a price. I was referred to the ‘manager’, who eventually, after repeatedly being asked, quoted me £99. When I refused she got shirty and said if I was brought up in London I should know that nothing is free!!! My computer really is going wrong, which is why I nearly believed them. So relieved to see this info about the scam.
This exact  same thing happened to me but i reconized the event viewer from being there before and i asked his numberso i could call him back.isaid i wanted to talk to my niece who was a computer tech…..the guy just stammered as he gave me a number/false i’m sure..that wasn’t the last of them,,next one i told to get a real job instead of ripping people off .They were shocked and hung up on me..lol
Just had another call today from someone claiming to be John Anderson from helppconline, phone no. 08080488106 – needless to say, not the same number as a company called Help PC Online.Â
i have had 5 of these calls, the first i gave to my hubby, who told them to kcuf off!! the second i hung up on them, then i have had 3 in 5 days the first i just told them to get a proper job, they hung up on me, then yesturday ( bank holiday in england) i asked them how they knew i had a pc and where did they get my number from, they hung up on me, and just now i pretended to be utterly shocked and started yelling down the phone that my pc was going to die cos of the virus!! I was hung up on, next im going to try a whistle!
Am fuming and feel really STUPID.
Was contacted yesterday by ‘Microsoft Technical Support’. I wanted to know how they got my phone number and address as they told me it? Apparently it was from my server!!!!!!!!!!
Long story short, they have phoned x 2 again today, I wanted to know what for. I asked them what company name, phone number address etc. Well, well today they are calledÂ
PC Online Health  Today they got very shirty with me, told me I was wasting their time and there would be a charge of £99 today – what for????????
Put my son on the phone – they will not be phoning here again.
Please be very careful everyone, ask for a company name and phone number and web address.
Employer number, etc stall time and get these bar stewards aireated a little – a dose of their of medicine me thinks. Ha ha
 Alan’ ringing from India but said they are based in West Sussex!!
Crikey, my own personal computer is sending errors to Microsoft’s main server and it’s jamming the whole system…..allegedly!!
He said they work for ‘Microsoft Certify Ingenious’.
I asked for further details (because I had time and I’m just devilish when I get these calls!)
I
told him we were registered with the TPS but he was quite insistent
that this did not matter as my computer was causing so many problems for
Microsoft!! (Crikey)
I asked for their number in West Sussex and he
gave me 08082802518….when I asked for the address he went off to get
it!! Ha! Then he went off the line!!
What he wanted, I would imagine was to remotely access my naughty computer!! As if!!
Who are these poor people that do this? They will be paid a pittance in India and to what avail?
Just let them rabbit on and go make a cup of tea or put the phone down. Shame.
Still going on now 13/6/12, just as above and will not give up, wants to phone back etc.
Not able to trace call as of course comes in from outside the UK
Looking forward to his return call later having read this!!!!!!.
Watch out they are still about!!Â
Richard. from  Sussex.
Well if you keep them talking the call gets cut off at the 45 minute mark 🙂 I asked why the internet was littered with poor reviews of the company and was told it was their competitors trying to make them look bad. I wonder if they will post their accounts in two weeks, when the Companies House website says they’re due.
RECEIVED CALL 15/06/12 FROM “TONY HARVEY” AND AS I HAD RECEIVED ERROR REPORTS FROM MICROSOFT, I THOUGHT IT WAS GENUINE, UNTIL MY BRAIN WENT INTO GEAR AND THOUGHT STRANGE NAME FOR AN INDIAN!   THEN I TOLD HIM IT WAS A SCAM. HE RANG BACK SIX TIMES. MONDAY 18 JUNE RANG AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN.  TUESDAY 19TH JUNE “RODERICK” RANG!   PERSISTENT BEGGERS.
Just hung up from the scammer. Indian accent, says his name is James William and he says his phone numer is 813-642-3190. He told me I had 1,900 events and my computer will crash any second. He said he was from Tampa Florida. Why would an Indian in Tampa Florida be calling a resident in Burlington Ontario Canada, is beyond me. Total scam. Very persistent and I told him I wished to discuss it with computer people I know and he wanted me to immediately let him have remote access of my computer. Not bloody likely! He had no idea where I lived or who I was. Don’t let them fool you!
They tell you to go to Event Viewer to get a list of your computer’s errors, hoping that you don’t know what that means (it won’t tell you anything important about your computer’s errors) … they want £99.99 for a year to put it right. I don’t know if they send you any malware – but even if they don’t, you can get your computer serviced & set up right for a lot less than that. Don’t let them do anything & certainly don’t pay them anything.
I stopped these calls by amusing myself in various ways:
1: As soon as I know who they are I don’t say anything at all, sometimes even putting the phone down on the bench top and going to do something else.
2: waiting until they are finished and saying something along the lines of how amazing they are since I don’t have a computer (I do but there is no way they know whether I do or not)
3. As soon as I know it is the scammers I scream like I am going to die and bang the phone on a hard surface a couple of times.
4. Use these scammer calls as a welcome stress relief, hurling as much abuse down the phone as I can think of on the spot.
5. Sometimes I just hang up as soon as I know it is the scammers without saying anything.
Don’t get the calls now for some reason 🙂
I fell for this sh*t two years. I didn’t actually believe it was legit, but for some dumb reason I ran it anyway. Laptop has been goosed ever since and haven’t actually used it really since. Always slow, always crashing.
Never coughed up any money, but just had that horrible feeling afterwards that something was untoward.
It’s still happening 3/7/12 English name Indian accent from Virgin Media working for a company in Leicester by the name of HELP P C ONLINE Tried telling me that I had problems with my computer which I had and actually emailed McAfee the day before because that was where my error laid with their anti virus programme.
Very convincing until he asked me for £99.99p to sort it out by taking control of my computer and letting me watch my problems disappear before my eyes as he worked on it. I thanked him for his time but declined the offer and then made my dogs bark in the ear piece of my phone..Â
Just had a call from one of these lovely Indian gentlemen and I said you are trying to sell me something and I don’t like cold calls. He said he would put on his supervisor who assured me it was all legitimate and was from Microsoft. He made me look at event viewer and said my protection wasn’t working. I told him it was fine and so was my computer but he wanted me to put in a security number so he could fix things. I told him I wouldn’t and didn’t trust him or his Company he said he would speak to my husband later when he is in but I’ve since googled and got this blog. If he phones back then he won’t appreciate me shouting down the phone as I’m a Town Crier and have reached 109 decibles in a British Championships. I don’t think his ears will appreciate it
2012-07-27 (Fri) Received call from an Indian gentleman telling me that my computer is infected with virus. When I asked how he gets my number, he company is a Microsoft Certified support company and his company has phone number of all microsoft users. When I asked for his company name, he said Instant Virtual Support. I checked out this company online and it seems to be a valid company. However, it suddenly dawned on me that I have four computers, how does he know which one I have that has the virus. I asked for his phone number and he refused to give me. That’s when I know this must be a scam. Beware of these crooks!!
I’ve had several of these calls and usually just hang up. However, this time I persistently asked him to give me his name and number. He said he was called Jack and was calling on behalf of Microsoft. I asked for his surname and he said Spratt! He gave me the phone number 08082802518. Said he was based in Century House, Ground Floor, 100 London Road, Leicester, LE2 0QS. I’ve checked and that address does exist and seems to have HelpPCOnline listed there (or should that be Help Con Line?). He got very irate when I told him (lied) that I don’t have a computer and that I didn’t believe he was calling on behalf of Microsoft. I told him that I’d be passing on his details to Trading Standards and the Police and he lost the plot so I hung up. He rang me straight back but I just ignored it. Hopefully he’ll knock me off his list now.
Has anyone heard of victims having anything other than money taken as in identity theft or theft of information from their computer? I have reformated my laptop, and changed all my passwords etc. But would like to know if I’m at risk of identity theft… Cheers
I have just been phoned by this fake micosoft worker, he is not convincing. He can hardly speak english for a start. No way was I falling for that crap, I simply hung up. Microsoft would never call you directly this is a total scam.
Ive had a couple of calls recently and I’ve told the guy that he should go home immediately because his wife is currently having sex with his neighbour, I’ve also recommended they die a long slow painful death.
Have had about a dozen calls over the last week (2 today 29/08/12) – latest saying they were from Microsoft and Help PC on line – all with Asian accents. Suspicious when they ask you to open the pc and suggest they go through it all with you – glad I didn’t. Have messaged the genuine co ‘Help PC on line’ (hope it was anyway) to alert them – wish someone would catch the b……. as am fed up picking the phone up for them – they never give up!
Have had about a dozen calls over the last week (2 today 29/08/12) – latest saying they were from Microsoft and Help PC on line – all with Asian accents. Suspicious when they ask you to open the pc and suggest they go through it all with you – glad I didn’t. Have messaged the genuine co ‘Help PC on line’ (hope it was anyway) to alert them – wish someone would catch the b……. as am fed up picking the phone up for them – they never give up!
i have just had a call from”adam lee”..with exactly the same things as listed down here.got me to press the microsoft button and a list of errors came up.when i told him this is rubbish adam lee suddenly became an aggresive adam lee.told me my computer had had it.what with all the noise in the background indians shouting over each other.(his background not mine).i hung up
have had so many of these calls myself i did let one in my computer ages ago. the calls keep coming. the reasons why they are phoning me is changing as with who they work for. i got suspicious when i had so many. most have said they work for microsoft. i since found out that microsoft do not phone you in your home. i had one on monday this time was banging on about the microsoft software product key. saying it had to be updated. one thing they all have in common is i am sorry to say they are all indian. all saying if all the things they mention arent put right my computer will stop working. hey presto its still going. so with the help of someone who knows all about computers i contacted microsoft web site and got action fraud squad number. i have phoned them. so if yu manage to get name of their company or any information that may help their cause then pass it all onto them. a bit after i made that call i got another call again indian. saying i am sam i work in the BT office your computer is showing that it is running slow. Is it i said was using it at the time of the call and it was working fine. so i told him i was in touch with the police. about these calls and they was to leave me alone as they were all being investigated. was told by the fraud people that there is a lot of it about on the internet and they are trying to combat it. so please if you get any calls like this put the phone down dont get into conversation with them. and for heavens sake do not let them have access to your computer.
I had a call from and Indian man at PC health Online this afternoon at 3pm saying that my pc or laptop was running slow and that he could fix it. After having received about 8 calls like this in the last 3 months, I told him to hang on a minute. I then waited 20 seconds and I then said to him “Thank you for holding, I’ve just retrieved your phone number and I am currently reporting this call to the E Crimes unit at the Metropolitan Police”. At this point he said “Go ahead and report this number” and then immediately hung up 🙂
Apart from today, most recent call was 2 weeks ago. When I answered the phone I heard an Indian man’s voice starting with the usual spiel about slow pc etc. I pretended I hadn’t heard first time round and said “I’m sorry sir, I didn’t hear you clearly, this is Microsoft Support how may I help you” and the phone just went dead! :-))
Thanks I was nearly caught. He sounded so convincing and when he said my online banking was at risk I almost said yes. To be honest I am very worried about going back on line as I had allowed him on to my desktop. Will he have planted a Trojan in my computer? in retrospect it sounds so silly now but late at night it was a very different story!
Well Alan Watson (with a very Indian dialect) has been a busy man tonight……. We have had two calls from him this evening. The first was answered by my husband, who after hearing and very quickly gathering it was a scam call, went into his ‘demented and lost-the-plot’ full on Victor Meldrew impression, adding (for the purpose of feeling energised and invigorated after a boring day at the office) a few rather loud and colourful swear words. Alan, who had obviously been very turned on by my husbands lashing tongue and dirty talk, just couldn’t resist another bout of abuse and called our house again! Alas, poor Alan, instead of getting Mr Verbal Whiplash, got me instead….. Feeling sorry for poor Alan I went into counselling mode, I thought that it was best that he ‘let it all out’, I allowed him the freedom to talk…… With gentle persuasion I encourged him to witter on about my demonic PC. He told me all about how because of my ‘spyware’ being faulty or something like that, it was corrupting the world’s PC’s…. how scary is that?!! Now lulled into a sence of deep security, he cherrily disclosed his telephone number 08082802518, company registration number 07390129 and just as a means of trying to hook me in even further he told me that the company was in West Sussex…… he then must have had a little spell of amnesia because he couldn’t remember the address he was calling from in West Sussex…. ahh bless. Then I got bored, told him I was going to make the dinner and put the phone down
Hi guys, I have had many calls re: all above and I am afraid they caught me at a low time in my life and I was taken in. They are now calling (about a year later) saying they are refunding my money as the company has gone backrupt and they legally have to refund the money. They want me to log in to my computer and follow directions, I won’t print what I told them to do. Has this happened to anyone?
Henry with the Indian accent (Kolkata I believe) was VERY pushy and impatient. He claims your PC is being hacked and takes you to a window that shows a load of recent error messages, then tells you he will clean it and asks you to log onto a website. that’s when I thought STOP! do not be so stupid. NEVER take sweets from strangers I was told as a child…and CERTAINLY never let a stranger into your computer…do not be Naive! If they have got into your computer, best suggestion is dump it and buy an Apple Mac. You wont have to worry about viruses then…and Henry, Jeremy, Garry, David…and every other fake named telesales operator in Kolkata will be stopped from stealing the registration fee and your personal information. They stole UKL110.00 from my mother who is 81 before I found out what she was doing. Thieves with no morals. Good Luck and be Wise.
just had call myself Dec-12 asian sounding chap called Brad Smith claimed to be a technician at Health PC Online Ltd tel. 0808 280 2518 advised ip address errors and my pc at risk even if i bought a new one it would corrupt in 6months asked to logon and go to configuration page and services to see if it was 50/50 (?) .. im not advanced IT but know enough to sense a scam asked for more details and finally he said they charge £109 py £15 discount for christmas!! is convincing when they call your home phone number but pleased i did not fall for it reading the below – hope people do like me and check for scam before paying!!
are the errors harmful to your pc? as had a call today from them but did not follow through with the scam
Y m saying this because i went all through this and if an1 tell me take your example if u r running a shop in the market and your neighbours call you scammer if you not how you’ll gnna feel? look the official company is based in west sussex and if a company is running in the market form past three years and goverment registered it so i dnt thnk gov. will register scam companies for such a long time you all would b thinking im saying this bcuz m workng there but thats not true im a customes who first enquired who is the right helppconline ltd then my sayng and m enjoyng services 24/7
if you get any more of these calls just shout bun murra down the phone its f@~k off in their language
Had one of these recently from Help PC Online; although the details being given by the callers resolve to a real company do not, I repeat do not let them trick you into giving them remote access to your computer. Every Windows computer in the world will have the event log entries that they use to scare you into giving them access.
Spent an interesting 30 minutes or so on the phone with them stringing them along. Alex and Sandy Wilson apparently. Sandy put the phone down on me after telling me they had 10 thousand other customers to ‘help’.
They also try to pretend to be visa and amex too
Had a call several months ago from someone who said they worked for Microsoft. I was shown all these supposed errors on my system and I told it would crash if I did not do something immediately. I was firstly told they were not after any money but then they changed tactics. By then I had realised it was a scan and put the phone down
Just got a call like this and since i am of Indian origin i could tell in a sec that its a spam call. so i abused them in their own motherF**ng language. lol