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All posts tagged with "Geekiness"

Don't get caught out by phone scams

Most people are wise to so-called phishing scams, usually in the form of emails pretending to be from a reputable place such as a bank asking you to click a link to 'secure your account' or similar. Said link is usually a clone of the real site so that users feel comfortable entering in their confidential data. Of course, it all gets sent to scammers who go and use your details to commit fraud. Lovely.

It's not a new thing at all, but people are doing this over the phone too. A popular one that recently caught out a family member is that someone will call, ask for the householder by name, and proceed to tell them they are from Microsoft or 'Windows Support'. They may have the householder's email and/or home address (from where I have no idea; they may be using the local phone book or have the details sold onto them from other sources) and will gain the trust of the user by confirming these with them, proceeding then to tell the user their computer is infected by viruses and this must be fixed now or they will be fined/their computer will crash/other similar threats. Sounds like a classic scam, but due to the user being named it can catch people out - especially if they're computer illiterate.

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