Southwark Disablement Association

Be aware of a new scam that targets British computer owners. This is a clever and simple con you need to be on your guard.

The fraudster cold-calls the customer and tells them something along the lines that they "monitor all Microsoft Windows computers and they have detected a virus on your PC", they will then invite you to download a piece of remote-assistance software. You will be assured that they can make the virus vanish.

If you agree to the downloading of this software your pocket will be lighter by approximately £185 beforehand and a machine that will have extra software on it hopefully not doing anything but I think this is highly unlikely, your machine will not be cured as there was no virus in the first place.

Please don’t think this is just another scam message to be filed into the scam waste basket, take this seriously I have had this happen to me although, I hasten to add, I have kept the £185 and told these people to get lost or words to that effect.

For more info on this story go to The unstoppable "tech support" scam.

To help keep your system safe it is advisable to download at least anti-virus software and a firewall. The software that I use, which may be of value to you and they are free, is AVG Anti-Virus, ZoneAlarm Firewall, Lavasoft AdAware and Spybot Search and Destroy. These are updated and used regularly on my nachine, are straight forward to use and keep the nasties at bay, well they have so far.

Alan Nicholson July 2010

UPDATE

I have been contacted again by another scammer claiming to be looking after my P.C., what a nice chap!

I asked him why he was monitoring my P.C. and he answered ‘you are a customer of ours......’ I interupred him to ask who this commpany is that I am a customer of and he promptly put the phone down.

Once again I say to you do not be conned into this scam.

If you are contacted by these leeches just put the phone down, don't worry that you may feel you are being rude these scammers are not worried that they are conning you out of money or the fact that you are vulnerable and don't have this sort of money to pay out so please be careful

Alan Nicholson 25 August 2010

These people must think I am stupid, they have left me alone for a few months then contacted me again with the same old rubbish about wanting to help me rid my PC of this piece of software!

Do these amoebas think I have forgotten them and happily give them £185 in which to remove non existant software!

Alan Nicholson 9 February 2011