It’s telephone scam time again

By Danielle Galvin
SCAM callers are doing the rounds again.
On 5 August, Bill from Pakenham received three separate calls starting at 5.30pm.
The last call he received was at 8.50pm from a private number.
“They kept saying they would fix the Windows on my computer, and that I just needed to turn my computer on,” he said.
Suspecting that the call was a hoax, Bill told the operator that he did not know how to turn the computer on and his daughter was not home to help him.
He said that there was nothing wrong with his computer and he had not been in touch with Windows to report any problems with the software.
“Then, they said, they would call back when my daughter got home and asked when that would be.”
The operator told him that his computer needed to be fixed.
“They said we can fix it from here. But I thought that was ridiculous. I’d read about other people receiving scam calls, and I thought something wasn’t right,” he said.
Anyone worried about scam activity can report it to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission by checking out the SCAMwatch website; www.scamwatch.gov.au.
Earlier this month, SCAMwatch received reports about operators claiming to be from Telstra or BigPond.
The scamming authority has also received reports of scammers from overseas call centres claiming to be tech support for Windows or Microsoft users.