Beware of computer scams

Dear Editor,

I would like to share with the readers and many others what I experienced upon returning home from work Thursday evening and it is something that is very disturbing and found to be a "BIG SCAM"!

Coming in from work, I find my husband with his laptop open while waiting on hold with the phone, and at the same time in a bustle.

"Oh no" he says, Micro Soft called me and said they found all kind of errors codes coming from my laptop that showed up on their servers and now they have control of my screen and said it will shut down my computer and harm others if it doesn't get fixed right away!

My first gut instinct was something seems shady here. I took the phone right away and questioned this situation.

The guy was trying to feed all kinds of scenarios and the more he was trying to convince us that without their help, the computer was dead in the water, I knew this was not legit.

So being that I am somewhat computer savvy ... I took control of the screen and that is when he got really agitated. Keeping him on the phone I called our ISP provider and alerted them and they said definitely a scam and shut down and hang up right away.

We did, and then was instructed to call Microsoft to alert them.

Microsoft said at no time - and they stressed -do they ever, ever, ever make calls outbound like that and only if there is a technical issue that a customer calls in on, do they ever make outbound calls. They are aware of these issues. The scamming company uses the name SWITZ.NET.

I just would like to let the public know that again, "ANOTHER HEADACHE TO DEAL WITH".

I personally, as a rule ... don't answer a number that I don't recognize or am not waiting for.....if it is important they can leave a message for a return call. Now a days you just don't know who or what you're are dealing with.

As for the outcome, Microsoft check the computer and there was nothing wrong with it. There was no credit card information exchanged, thank God. And we took other security measures.

Please don't anyone accept this type of call and or let anyone take control of your computer screen unless YOU are the one having a real issue.

And always make sure it is a legit company.

Hope this gets out for others to hear.

Thank you,

Darlene Hughes

Lehighton