For my techie friends -- you know how this goes.
For my non-techie friends -- if someone calls and says, "I am calling to talk to you about your Windows computer. It has a virus on it that is sending messages on the internet. I want to help you get rid of it..." --
The answer is, "No, I don't need any help."
Or, "No, you can't scam me, I don't believe you."
Or, "Oh really, how interesting! The computer sending messages is owned by the US Government. I would like to have someone from the Internal Revenue Service call you back to understand what is going on... give me your phone number, please?" (This was fun to use when Dwayne was employed by the US Government and we had an IRS laptop in our home office.)
Or... if you are concerned by what they are telling you and you are non-techie, legitimately ask for their phone number, indicating that you will have your computer support person call them back. Then, get in touch with me (or Dwayne) and we will call them back for you. The likelihood is that it is a scam, but if you think it might be true, I would rather you take advantage of help that Dwayne or I could give you, than that you get scammed. And, if they will give you a phone number, it is more likely that they are something legit; if they won't give you a phone number, it is almost certain they are scamming you.
Update on 11/29: another person called me from "Windows Security Service". I talked with him a bit longer; he led me through opening the Windows Event Viewer and into the Application events, pointing out to me that there are warnings and errors in there. (I'm not a Windows guru, but I am pretty sure there are almost always errors in there!) I tried to get his phone number to be able to call him back; he gave me my phone number... I intended to work with him long enough to find out the command he would give me to enter that would supply him access to my computer... but it was taking too long. He did say that I had a very nice voice and that he liked talking with me.
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