Windows Calling

I got a weird phone call last night. It was a man with an Indian accent who assure me he was calling from the Windows error report center who wanted to talk me through fixing my computer.

Seriously? Why would Microsoft call me? I mean, even if I did have a problem with my computer that caused it to send error reports, why call? I never gave them my phone number. When I asked, the guy claimed it was in my registration information.

OK, so I figure it’s a scam. Normally I would simply have hung up, but I got curious. Exactly how would he try to scam me? I started off by patronizingly asking if I saw and recognized the button on my keyboard next to the control button. He meant the windows button. He instructed me to press this and the letter r at the same time. This brought up a run screen. I was then to type in the letters “Event VWR”. I dutifully, and perhaps foolishly, did so. The result was a message saying there was no such event.

It occurs to me that if my computer was really infected – unlikely with my firewalls, but possible – this might have cause a Trojan to run. When it didn’t the increasingly frantic “tech” wanted my to try the same thing with the letters “Event INF”

At this stage the food I was cooking out weighed mt curiosity, so I hung up.
Later, when I had time, I googled the number. (212-456-7893) My, what a lot of complaints. Mostly people just hung up, much like myself. None of then forked over any money or seemed to take more damage than the sheer nuisance. I have yet to figure out how they make their money. Maybe that’s just as well.