You may have had this happen to you. You are working away at your computer when a pop up appears telling you that your computer is infected with a nasty virus and all that you have to do is to click on the indicated box and technicians will swoop in and fix your problem.  For a fee.

If you are unfortunate enough to take them up on that offer they often find “other issues” that need to be corrected while they are there and you end up with a big bill.  They could even install nefarious software while they are poking around in your computer.

Some of these scammers actually claim to be from Microsoft or they claim that they are “Microsoft Partners” which often lulls you into a false sense of security. Why wouldn’t you trust someone who claims to be a Microsoft Partner?  Read on to find out why you need to be wary of these claims.

I am a long time subscriber to a newsletter that says that it provides “Everything that Microsoft forgot to mention”.  And given what I have read over the years, they are correct! A recent article by well respected author Woody Leonhard entitled “Microsoft takes on scummy tech-support companies“ really lays bare the process by which these scammers work, what Microsoft is doing about it, and how you can protect yourself.

I could go on and on, but instead I am giving you the link to the article. If you still rock Microsoft software, then you need to take a few minutes to read this.  It’s not terribly “techie” and you’ll come away much better informed about what to do when your computer has one of those all too frequent “hiccoughs”!

Here is the link: http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/microsoft-takes-on-scummy-tech-support-companies/

While you are there you might want to follow their social media sites or even subscribe to the newsletter…