ORLANDO, Fla. — Reports of scammers who cold-call computer owners and tell them the Windows license key has expired on their machines have been popping up in Central Florida recently.
One Orlando man, Johnnie Harris, said the scammers left a voicemail saying his Windows operating key had expired and he needed to call Microsoft to get it fixed.
When Harris called back, the man on the other end of the line started giving him instructions to follow.
“Mash the Windows key and this other key over here, and hold it down for them,” he said.
When Harris told the man he was suspicious about the instructions, the scammer abruptly ended the phone call.
“He said, ‘Yeah, don’t call this number no more,’ and boom, he hung up,” Harris said.
Another victim told Channel 9 that she fell for the scam and before she even had time to turn off her computer, hackers had taken control of the machine and changed her password.
WFTV IT/engineering support technician Eric Hopes said the danger in a situation such as this is that the scammers can not only take over a person’s computer, they can see, and steal, any information on it.
“Well, the biggest issue if someone’s got control of your computer is they’re logged in as you,” he said. “So anything you can see, they can see. Anything that you would normally have access to on your computer, they would have access to.”
The recent incidents in Central Florida are very similar to other scams the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have investigated in the past, officials from the organizations told Channel 9.
Cox Media Group