There’s been a 24% increase with 153,000 complaints have been received by Microsoft, about this tech support scam.
15% of the complainants have lost money to the scammers.
The scammers cold call users usually claiming to be from Microsoft. The are then walked through a number of steps that results in something scary happening to their computer, and a fee being paid to resolve the problem.
The complaints have been received from 183 different countries, with one Dutch user loosing €89,000 after the scammers got hold of their bank accounts.
So if someone you don’t know calls to tell you that you have a virus on your computer, by all means waste their time as you pretend not to understand how to turn it on, but never follow their instructions.