Just had a call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft, just randomly on my home phone line, the call came from 01767329973. There have been repeated calls from this number and numbers like it over the last few days, mostly I don’t bother to answer them and leave them to go to answerphone on the grounds that if it is a genuine caller they will leave a message and let’s be clear these calls are scams.

This time I did answer and the caller claimed to be from Microsoft. I am amazed that this scam is still going. It used to be that they would claim to be from the “Technical Department of Windows” something which I first wrote about in 2010. Although it took until 2014 for Microsoft themselves to come out and say that these calls are scams. Neither Microsoft nor their partners make unsolicited phone calls (also known as cold calls) about your computer security or software fixes. Any communication with Microsoft has to be initiated by you. These calls are from organized cybercriminals and can come in several forms, but they share a common attack plan:

Typical chain tech support scams claiming to be a phone call from Microsoft

The best thing to do when you do get such a call, just laugh loudly and then hang up, the more people laughing at the scammers the more they will be demoralised, knowing that they have been rumbled. If you would like to leave a comment with your experiences and/or the number the scammer was calling from in the comment section, please feel free to do so.