Strange Phone Call

12 years ago

Yesterday I had this phone call from a person that said I probably had a virus on my windows and he would fix it for me. He had a thick accent and you could tell it was a long distant call. He got really pushy when I told him to bother someone else.

Sad to say there are many people who would let this guy onto their computer.

Be careful.

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Comments (10)

jannie
12 years ago
If he calls me, I'll hang up. My standard answer "I never do any business over the phone."
marie_ndcal
12 years ago
I too had a call but not for computer stuff, but for donations as I had reported. I now have caller id so I can see where it came from. I suspect it was the gal who did my hair last, (poor job) and she wanted me to come back next week to get streaks--I refused.
Oh well, will go someplace else.
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Please - all you Mamma Bears (said with great respect - I'm a mom too) take a deep breath, stand back, and calm down. I have no doubt that that phone call was upsetting and frightening. Your daughter was smart to call you, and I think you were smart to investigate and also for Dad to call back and make himself abundantly clear. If the caller had bad intentions, he now knows that your daughter has a pissed-off no-nonsense male for protection. That can't hurt. But please do consider that the caller may not have had bad intentions. As you noted Bethpen, your daughter was kind to several young men with poor social skills, any one of whom might have made that call without understanding at all how it might have seemed to her... He may genuinely have considered her a friend, and have wanted to reestablish contact and see how her new job was going, and had no idea how creepy it would have seemed. But your daughter's creeped-out reaction may have alerted him to the fact that the phone call wasn't going well, so he declined to give his name for that reason - not thinking how that would make it all even worse... This type of action and lack of insight would be very typical of a young man with autism. This call was a single action, not a series, that was perceived as creepy because it did not conform to social norms. There was nothing threatening in what was said, but the social inappropriateness (that's the nature of the autism disability) created a perceived problem. A mountain out of what could truly be a molehill. At this point there has been one phone call with a message that was inappropriate and yes, creepy, but not actually threatening. Please try and keep that in perspective, and carefully consider the option that it may not have been meant to provoke fear. That said, I do agree with the suggestions to inform HR where your daughter works, and to ask for specific training about how to handle threatening calls. Given the nature of her work, that can only be of benefit. This post was edited by sweeby on Sun, Aug 10, 14 at 14:24
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wanda_va
12 years ago
I had a similar call--it's a scam. They tell you they work for your internet provider and try to convince you to give them control of your computer--then they have access to all your "stuff".
Pooh Bear
12 years ago
Tell them you don't have a computer. :o)

Pooh Bear
smilin54
12 years ago
I had a call like that 2 wks ago. They told me they were from Microsoft Tech Dept & that the department had been getting a lot of error signals from my computer. They were very pushy, kept telling me that it was ok to do this. I told them I wasn't born yesterday & they could go bug somebody else. They called back about 20 minutes later, even more insistent. That time I told them they could deal with my son when he got home from work, he's MY computer tech. They called the next day and at that point, I told them I had contacted the local police as well as the Internet Crimes Regulators, they hung up this time...really really fast.
chisue
12 years ago
I've had three emails claiming my email address will be eliminated if I don't reply. Yeah, right, especially when they ask for name, address, phone number, DATE OF BIRTH, and (of course) SS number.

We do have a very old email address. I suspect the scammer thinks anyone old enough to have this provider name must be senile.
3katz4me
12 years ago
SpeakIng of strange calls, I got one where the caller ID said Phone Scam. I thought that was really odd. I didn't answer like any other call that isn't someone I know.
heather_on
12 years ago
We get that computer virus call at least once a week. My DH and I keep coming up with funny answers for them, but it is getting really annoying.
susanjf_gw
12 years ago
wow these sound worse than the cc interest ones...

even the ligit people can be annoying...the mail-delivered drug people for blue cross want to get us to change and we don't want to...my dd had late deliveries, and finally went back to her drug store...i love my people at target...they know me by name...
Rudebekia
12 years ago
Wow, how great it would be if caller ID identifies the scams and say Phone Scam! Like many, I won't even answer my phone unless I know who is calling.

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Strange Phone Call

Comments (10)

jannie

marie_ndcal

Related Discussions

wanda_va

Pooh Bear

smilin54

chisue

3katz4me

heather_on

susanjf_gw

Rudebekia

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