Did Microsoft Call You and Say You Have A Virus?

by | Oct 25, 2016 | Computer Scams, Miscellaneous

Well it is a SCAM!

  1. Microsoft does not call you like this.
  2. Microsoft does not monitor your computer or any individuals computer for viruses.

What do you do – HANG UP! Please Hang up on these people.

Yes, I meant to use caps and shout. These people are trying to gain access to your computer and will ruin it. Then they will want to charge you to fix it. That is the scam – to take your money.

I fixed one of these computers some years back, it was a friend of mine. Her computer was less than 6 months old. She thought it was Microsoft and did what they told her to do so they could access her computer. Luckily when they started talking money a light bulb went off and she got off the phone, but the damage was already done to her computer – totally inoperable. She brought it to me and I never was able to get the operating system to run properly. We ended up reinstalling the OS and starting all over fresh.

Today, I got one of those calls on my cell phone today. That is what prompted this blog post. When I finally got tired of his belligerence, I told him this conversation was over. He had the audacity to say – no this conversation is not over. I said yes it is over and hung up!

I cannot believe that this scam has been going on so long without being stopped. But I also know with all the sneaky things the scammers can do to hide their identity, it is almost impossible to track them down.

All they are after is your money – plain and simple. So what can you do to help stop them? Simple – Hang Up on Them! If the scam no longer becomes profitable, they will stop calling.

So tell all your friends – Microsoft does not call you about viruses on your computer!

Might As Well Start With A Rant

by | Apr 17, 2016 | Miscellaneous

Gotta start posting about something, so I have decided to start with some ranting and explain what is fast becoming annoying to me. Annoying enough that I no longer visit some sites.

Many people are making money on the web with their websites and blogs and I have no problem with that. I realize that when visiting websites or blogs that I will have to look at a host of ads that are paying for the site to be there. But there are a few things that irritate me and hare hard to ignore.

Sign Up for My Newsletter

I love newsletters. It helps me to see new ideas and patterns for the crafts I do. It helps me keep up with new software, viruses and problems on the Internet……well you get the idea. Newsletters can be a great thing.

So I have opened the latest newsletter and see something I want to read, so I click through to read the article. Page loads and and before I can read anything, the page fades and a box comes up wanting me to sign up for the newsletter – and I just clicked through the newsletter!!  And this happens every time I go to the site. With all the abilities that websites have, there should be a way to recognize a subscriber over a non-subscriber – cookies maybe. Or use the link in the newsletter to tell the site I am a subscriber,  or something, please.

Leaving The Page

I have my browser setup to open links I click in emails in a new browser tab. When I finish reading, I move the mouse up to close the tab. The page darkens …..don’t leave yet! Or it could also be a “sign up for my newsletter”. Even worse, sometimes the script used for this annoying holdup, can stop working and lock up my computer, Just had this happen today which prompted this post.

Blog Content

While I am posting pet peeves, I want to mention something else that a few bloggers do that is irritating.

When you get a newsletter from a blogger, you do expect they have been busy writing something interesting for you to read. You click the link and when arriving at the page you are surprised to find a few sentences, a couple of pictures and a link to the actual content – that someone else wrote. When getting to the actual content, you then realize that the person writing the newsletter, really has not written anything. They copied a bit of the other persons content, put it on their post, then gave you a link to the original content, which is not theirs. I guess all the person writing the newsletter is interested in is making money from ad impressions.

When this happens I go back and check out the newsletter’s website. Many times I find that most of their site is written this way. All they are doing is benefiting from someone else’s hard work. Needless to say, that is a newsletter I unsubscribe from.

Bloggers –  Check your Sites Thoroughly From Time To Time

If you are making money from your website through the use of advertising, be sure to check it regularly to make sure that pages are loading properly. May ads use scripts to load their content and many times they are poorly written or even written wrong, so that the page hangs and never fully loads. This causes browsers to “lock up” or freeze. Then after a few minutes, your viewer gets a message “a script has become unresponsive”. It is so frustrating to realize the problem is not on your computer, but with the website. Most of the time, it is one of the ads that is the culprit.

Okay, ranting is over with for now. I had several of these things happen this morning, which prompted my writing. If you ever have a problem with my pages loading or any other problem with the website, feel free to leave a comment and I will fix it as quick as I can.