We’ve warned readers repeatedly that calls claiming to be from Microsoft that have detected an issue with your PC are invariably a scam. That remains the case, but in an interesting twist, it turns out that one of the Indian companies involved in placing those scam calls was actually a Microsoft certified partner.
Nicole Kobie at PC Pro reports that Indian company Comantra has had its “gold partner” status revoked after Microsoft determined that it was one source of those dubious calls. While that’s a good start, I reckon it would be better if Microsoft took legal action as well; not actually being an “official” partner isn’t going to stop those charlatans continuing with their practices.
Microsoft is the most prominently-cited name with this kind of scam, but as we reported earlier in the year, some callers now claim to be from Telstra. Whatever the company name, the rule is simple: no-one is going to ring you to help you fix a newly-detected problem on your computer. It’s a con. If you get one of these calls, just hang up. (If you want to be rude to the caller first, we’re not going to argue with you.)
Microsoft dumps partner over support call scam [PC Pro via AVG]
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