Beware of cold calling PC support scams

There is a relatively new scam doing the rounds at the moment and it involves cold callers pretending to be from a company you may or may not have heard of telling you that they need to gain access to your PC or get you to visit a certain webpage.
Here’s how the scam seems to be happening.

1. You get a cold call that you were not expecting – the caller is normally in a foreign call centre.
2. The caller will say he or from a well known company such as Microsoft, LogMeIn or maybe your ISP or anti-virus vendor. The actual company varies from scam to scam
3. The caller will state they have detected a problem with your PC and need to check it out.
4. They will ask you to visit a web page on your computer. This will either install some malware, virus or spyware on your PC – or they will guide you though a procedure to allow them to gain access to your PC. Another trick is that they will try to charge you to carry out unnecessary work on your PC at highly inflated rates.
5. If you don’t, they will say things like “your Internet will be disconnected if you don’t” or other “scare” tactics.

If you get one of these cold calls from a company, verify who they are – if it your ISP, they won’t mind letting you call them back on the main support number they publish to check it is them.
If they are pretending to be Microsoft, just hang up and ignore it – Microsoft never cold call consumers unless you contact them first – and they would never call to tell you to carry out procedures without you asking them first.
If you are in doubt if a call is genuine, always err on the side of caution and check it out. Contact the company they claim to be from BEFORE following any instructions.
Still doubtful or being pressured? Contact your local trading standards department and if you do have an issue with your PC, call us on 0161 660 7471 or email us at enquiries@posilan.com and we will be happy to give you genuine trustworthy advice.