Phone Scam Alert!

*** SPECIAL ALERT. DO NOT DIAL THE "SUPPORT" NUMBER. ***

It is the phone number to a fictional "TECHNICAL SUPPORT" DEPARTMENT in the foreign country of Redmond.

PROBLEM

What happens is you run a certain type of Windows software, and it crashes, and it tells you to contact the program authors and provide them with a long list of numerical codes you see when you click the "DETAILS" button. So you dial the number. Because an international dialing prefix isn't necessary, it looks like you are dialing a U.S. phone number. YOU ARE NOT.

When answered, the "support" person IMMEDIATELY ASKS FOR YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER, even before determining what the call is about. If you give your card number, you are asked to repeat the long list of numerical codes. This process not only results in an EXPENSIVE LONG-DISTANCE CHARGE to your phone bill, it also socks you with a HUGE DEBIT TO YOUR CREDIT CARD!

And this scam further bilks the caller because the "support" person will always say the problem IS NOT THEIR COMPANY'S FAULT, and you will have to call another software company, or whoever you bought the computer from. But, they WILL direct you to download "free patches" from their web site, which has the affect of causing more crashes that direct you to make even more calls back to them!

SOLUTION

Here's how to avoid this scam: NEVER contact this company's "technical support," as it is just run by their failed executives. LOOK for answers on independent web sites and in Usenet groups, where you will find people who give honest and useful answers. DO NOT DOWNLOAD patches unless you like treasure-hunt games, because you will spend a lot of time trying to find original copies of the third-party system files the patches have blown away.

These scam artists say they do what the CUSTOMERS DEMAND, so DEMAND that they STOP directing you to some weird foreign country that provides no actual solutions to the problems caused by their defective products.

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