General warning: telephone scams
March 12th, 2010 | Posted by Admin
During March 2010, a Kirby Bellars resident was telephoned, supposedly from Google, and told that the speed of broadband in his area area was slow. The resident was asked to switch on his computer and a technician would talk him through some steps in order to rectify the problem.
Fortunately the resident declined the offer and the caller became evasive before the call was ended. Entering code on a PC – or on a downloaded programme – can enable external providers to take control of your computer in order to investigate and fix a problem.
This is a very dangerous practice and should only be entered into when you are 100% confident that the other person is a genuine provider of the service you require. To ensure this, you will have rung them with a problem; they will not have rung you.
Sky hoax calls
On the 8th March, we received reports from several Harby residents about being contacted supposedly by Sky TV. The caller asks for the person by name and then asks if everything is ok with their Sky TV box.
If the householder says they do not have Sky, the caller apologises and says they must have wrong information, and then finishes the call. Dialling 1471 reveals the number not available.
As far as we can ascertain from the internet, this may be part of a two-part scam. The first part is a call to ascertain if the householder has a Sky TV box. A second call – probably a few days later – may be to say subscriptions are due with a request for credit card details.
Please do not disclose any personal details in this way.
If ever you hear of anything similar to this please contact the police on 0116 222 2222.
