727-569-8324

This morning while we were eating breakfast, the phone rang. My mom answered it, and they wanted to speak to my sister. They gave my sister’s name. Well, my sister isn’t living with us right now. She’s in graduate school in another state, and she is living on campus.

They insisted that they wanted to talk to her. My mom kept telling them that she wasn’t home, she was off at school, etc. They wanted my mom to turn on my sister’s computer.

They claimed that she had problems with her Windows computer. LOL — this was another red flag. My sister has two Windows computers, and they are both in our basement. Neither have been turned on in years. She currently uses a Mac, and she has that with her at school.

My mom didn’t tell them that my sister wasn’t using Windows computers anymore.

Anyway, my mom was very confused. The guy that she spoke to on the phone had a very thick Indian accent. He gave his name as being Richard Williams, LOL. That didn’t sound like an Indian name to my mom. She took down a phone number for my sister to call the guy at 727-569-8324.

My dad looked up the area code in the phone book. Apparently this is a Florida number.

After she hung up and told us about the situation, I immediately suspected it was a scam. First, why would my sister be needing support with her Windows computers?

Secondly, why would she give our home phone number instead of her cell phone for technical support when she is off at school? If she was needed technical support for a a computer she was using at her work, then she would have given the number of her place of employment.

Thirdly, why didn’t this guy with the Indian accent state what company he was with? And why did he call it a Windows computer rather than name the specific brand (HP or Dell or whatever)?

Fourth, his name Richard Williams — that doesn’t match up with an extremely heavy Indian accent.

My mom was really confused when she was talking to the guy. She said that they wanted to send her some kind of computer error report. My guess is that he told her that my sister’s computer was reporting errors, and he wanted to fix it. Like I said, he did want her to turn on my sister’s computer.

I did a search on the Internet and found that this is a scam that is affecting a lot of people. Apparently, if my mom had done what they had said, they would have had her opening a normal program on Windows that told her what the current activity was on the computer, then told her "this is terrible, a virus is going to destroy this computer soon."

Then, they would have had her search for a few more things, continuing to try to gain her trust. Once they had it, they would tell her to go to some site on the Internet and download a program so that they could have remote access to the computer. (This would allow them to steal information if they wanted to.)

Then, they'd ask for a credit card number, and bill us a bunch of money for their services to remove the viruses. If they were hung up on, they would lock my mom out of the computer with a password, or lock it up in another way, or make all the icons on the desktop disappear. Anyway, these people are scammers.

same number, same call, same accent, same scam.

Never let any one that does not identify their organization do... anything... with you personal info.