Five Tips to Help You Avoid Tech Support Phone Scams

One such scam affecting well-known companies — the telephone technical support scam — is becoming increasingly sophisticated and difficult to distinguish from legitimate tech support calls. In this scam, individuals claiming to work for Microsoft, BT, HP, Epson or others make unsolicited calls to customers and insist there is a technical problem with their product. They ultimately try to defraud customers by pressuring them to pay to fix the issue.

Our thanks to those who have alerted us that they have been contacted by scammers. This information has been invaluable to us in helping us investigate these scams. Here is our short guide on simple things to remember in order to stay safe from such attacks.

How to protect yourself against a scam caller

1. Hang up! If an unsolicited caller pressures you to act quickly and give up sensitive personal and financial information to fix an issue and/or engages in threatening, aggressive behavior, that’s a sign of a scam.
2. Never hand over your financial information to unsolicited callers who try to charge you to remove computer viruses, malware, or ransomware, even if they have specific information about your computer.
3. Never pay for tech support services with any type of gift card or by transferring funds. Major companies will never ask you for these forms of payment.
4. Never visit unverified websites and never download and install software that unsolicited callers try directing you to.
5. Never agree to give control of your computer to any unsolicited caller to fix an issue you did not report—despite how convincing they may sound.

If you feel you may have been scammed, switch off your computer immediately and contact us immediately via our online form or call us on 020 8445 6700.

Sat Shah, Head of Business IT Services, Optima IT

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