RECENTLY I almost became the victim of a computer scam that appears to be doing the rounds.
The scam involves a cold telephone call from a computer company who claim to be offering to clean up one’s computer. The name of the company was so complicated that I didn’t catch who they were.
They claimed to have information on every computer that is ever sold and that they have been asked to perform a maintenance task on these computers.
The story goes something like this. They know that your computer has lots of error messages and possible virus attacks, junk mail and so forth and they want to clean up your computer.
Obviously to do this they must gain remote access to your computer and so they offer to step you through the process to obtain your IP address.
The cold caller is very professional and convincing. Fortunately I became a little concerned and started to ask questions such as how did you get my phone number and if you have details of all computers then tell me where I bought my computer?
Both these questions received no reply.
As the conversation progressed I became more suspicious and when persisting with answers to my questions the caller realised that he had lost and put the phone down.
Incidentally my son has also received a similar phone call. He just put the phone down as he realised immediately that it was a scam.
I am 72 and fortunately do have a fair bit of computer experience, so was able to realise that the call was from a scammer.
My worry is that there are probably many senior citizens in our community who have limited computer knowledge and may be taken in by these scammers.