Saturday 19th February: I was called my Microsoft Support to say that my computer had registered a problem with them. I assumed that my wife, who isn't particularly technical, had been using my desktop and had encountered a problem which had emailed itself to Microsoft. She tends to just click anything to make annoying wndows go away! So I said that I would welcome their input on whatever problem my PC had encountered. Unfortunately, before we could do anything I lost the phone connection. I immediately called Microsoft Support, explained my problem and was put through to a technican, who I stupidly assumed was from Microsoft. It wasn't until hours later that he revealed that he was from iYogi, who supplement Microsoft Support.
Having explained my situation, he asked if he could have access to my computer in order to run a scan on it. This, I duly gave him and he began to run his scan. Whilst it was running he asked if I had any other computers, to which I informed him that I had three laptops, mine and my two kids each have one.By this time the scan was already showing serious 'malware' infections which he explained would have to be removed. He also reccommended that I give him access to the three other laptops in order to scan them at the same time. This was duly done and a couple of hours later, after he had explained at great length how I should only allow 'Microsoft Level Three Certified' technicians access to my computers, which rather counted out any further access for my wife! He showed me that I had several very serious 'malware' infections on all my computers. After consulting with his 'Level Three Certified' technician at great length, he informed me that they would all have to be removed, along with the conflicting protection software packages that I apparently had, and the large amounts of junk data which I had accumulated.
At this point, begining to suspect a scam, I explained that I use McAfee protection packages on all my computers, which I had already paid for. He then told me that they would have to remove all the protection packages, the malware and all the junk, installing their own protection package on each of my computers, for only a small fee of around £130 per computer! I pointed out (again!) that I had bought and paid for my McAfee licenses and didn't want to uninstall their software. To which he replied that I couldn't run conflicting protection packages on my computers and that theirs was much better than McAfee's.
By now, convinced that it was all a scam and extremely annoyed with myself for falling for their sales patter, I demurred by asking how they could possibly know what was 'junk' as it might be something that I wanted to keep. I also asked for them to put their offer into writing for me, preferably in the form of an email. Their response was that, having taken my card details they wouldn't extract the payment for three days, during which time I would receive an email detailing what I had paid for. I said that I wanted an email detailing exactly what I was being offered and at what price, before I made any form of payment.
By now my technician could sense that he was losing me and the sale, rather helped by my dropping of his connections to all my laptops. So he asked if he could put his supervisor on the line. I agreed, and simply reiterated to him my desire for their offer to be put into writing in an email prior to any payment being made on my part. He also proceeded to explain that what I was asking wasn't part of their operating procedure and thus he was unable to comply. I was then put onto their 'Manager' (although he was probably just the tea boy!) who also proceeded to explain that what I was requesting wasn't allowed as part of their company procedures. I then gave them some bullshit that in British Law I was entitled to request that their offer, be put into writing for my consideration prior to any payment being made. The 'Manager' then seemed to get a bit worried, but by now I had become fed up with the whole thing, convinced that it was simply another scam that I had almost fallen for. Although I did get a free scan of all my computers done, but whether the discovered 'malwares' are nasty and should be removed, I'll have to check with McAfee.
James
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