Computer scam hits Durban shores
A Durban North resident warns other residents of a computer scam making the rounds.
ANOTHER Durban North resident has fallen victim to a new scam, this time involving computers.
Maria Johnson (not her real name) said she’s been receiving calls on her landline from various foreigners stating they are calling from Microsoft, Dell and MAC.
She said they seem to have quite a bit of info pertaining to the person who the telephone number is registered to.
“They are scammers and want access to your credit cards, using information about your computer.
“They scammed me out of R804. They gave me a really genuine case giving me info about my brother’s MAC,” she said.
The first caller told Johnson they were calling from Mac.
“He said he could download an anti-fraud programme, onto the Mac PC we have, from where he is located is. I said the machine was off, how would that work?”
He then told her they have a very advanced system and that it can work with the machine off or on.
“Then he said to me: ‘haven’t you noticed that the computer is rebooting quite slowly?’ That got me. I thought perhaps Apple has an advanced system and I believed him. Although I am computer literate, I still believed him because he sounded genuine.
“Then he gave me all the info about Apple, which also had me believing him. I asked him if I could call him back, but he said he calls from a call centre that doesn’t have dial-in access,” she said.
Johnson then asked if he could call her back so she could verify this with a friend of hers, that is computer fundi, who told her the numbers are dialed randomly.
“The most recent caller said she was calling from Microsoft and that she is phoning me about my PC. Before she could continue I told her that I was not falling for her trash again. I had already been scammed by them and this time I wanted to tell her she must ‘bu#&er’ off. Before I could even say that, she had already put the phone down,” she said.
“Also, the fact that they call on landlines blew me away. Not many people have my landline. I didn’t realise that my brother, who the line is registered to, had the number listed in the directory. I have now requested that they remove this number,” Johnson said.
