Why Were These Guys Not Shut Down Ages Ago?

[TrueTomHarley]

Those who have followed me elsewhere know I have been grumbling about Word lately. When I grumble, I grumble big. I did it on Twitter, too, even tagging @microsoft. Very quickly I heard from @OfficeSupport

 

Hi, Tom. Thank you for reaching out. Please tell us more about the issue that you're having? Also, which Office application are you using? We'll wait for your response.

 

Me: This is kind of you to respond. The ‘Link to Previous’ button seems to have no effect. Office365Word. Enter chapter titles in odd header & it still populates headers of other sections. Sometimes it does. Othertimes no. Am I misreading the instructions?

 

Would you like to call our technical support team for a help? They can walk you through and guide you on how to use the Word. They can also answer all your questions in real time. Call them at 1-800-642-7676.

 

Me: If I enter the number you have given me, 800-642-7676, into a search engine, I come up with a host of pages saying that the holders thereof are frauds and liars.

 

…We understand the caution regarding this. We would like to confirm that the number we’ve provided is a legitimate Microsoft number…

 

A day or two passed. Then I heard from them again.

 

Hi, Tom! How’s everything? We hope you're having a great time. We’d love to hear about your experience with our Social Media support here: http://msft.social/dDqG3B . Feel free to send us a message anytime if you need our help. 1/2

 

Me: It’s not going well at all. Googling the phone number you gave me, 1 800 642 7676, returns many pages that say you are a scam.

 

(Concurrent with their tweet above): You may also Subscribe to our Customer Support YouTube channel here: http://msft.social/RqoPMD . Thanks for your time! 2/2

 

Me: One channel is all I need. If Google says the phone number you gave me, 1 800 642 7676, is a fraud, I will not hold my breath on a YouTube channel. Clean up that mess, if it is wrong.

 

.........

 

Everyone knows this phone number. This is the number that pops up when suddenly your screen freezes and you are advised that you have a virus or much worse. If you call them, you will find that they speak English poorly, and are intent upon having you cede control of your computer to them so that they may better 'help' you.

 

Look at your address bar and you will see it is simply a web page that has taken over everything else. That does not mean it is easily disposed of. Ususally a hard reboot is required, and also that browser session must be prevented from re-opening.

 

Plainly, these folks are outside of the country, so they are not easily thwarted. Even so, I am a little surprised that the actual Microsoft, big as it is, does not do whatever it takes to shut them down, as it leaves a horrible ugly taste toward their products from those who have been so accosted, and probably drives many to Apple. Maybe @admin, influential as he is, can pass this along to them. This is a job that even @The Librarian (the old biddy) may not be able to handle.

[admin]

@Microsoft has been improving in the last couple of years. I’m suprised they even responded albeit automatically though.  

I will forward off your complaint to someone I know over there.  

 

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, admin said:

@Microsoft has been improving in the last couple of years. I’m suprised they even responded albeit automatically though.  

I will forward off your complaint to someone I know over there.  

 

I am assuming that the @officesupport Twitter account is fraudlent, and that they just monitor social media for any mention of Microsoft.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

If you pick up some kind of virus, ransomware, or just if your programs get buggy  .... what has always worked for me is to reset my computers to a previous date where everything was good. The name escapes me for the moment what that function is, but it works even better than paid for virus protection programs.  Kapersky has a free Rootkit virus killer. If you can, run that first.  I don't know if that will help, but it's good practice.

Just keeping my computers clean with CCleaner's registry cleaner solves 95% of problems.  And that is also free.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

The reason these guys are not being shut down, is that there are 1500 FBI agents down at the edge of the "Sea of Trump", very very busy fishing for dirt.

I actually went to an FBI field office here in Charlotte with a complaint, and interviewed with an agent, explained a case of Internet fraud, and was told if it wasn't $5,000 they were not even interested.

[TrueTomHarley]

35 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I actually went to an FBI field office here in Charlotte with a complaint, and interviewed with an agent, explained a case of Internet fraud, and was told if it wasn't $5,000 they were not even interested.

This particular scam probably hauls in millions, though not (I hope) from any one person.

I think the utility you mean is called system restore. I have used it too.

If you do a hard reboot, as I think you must, you will lose any unsaved data. And if you are not savvy enough to know what’s going on, as no one is at first, you will panic when the screen returns even after reboot, not realizing that it comes via a browser session that may be restored.

I doubt chasing Trump has anything to do with it. This scam has been around longer than he has.

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

The reason these guys are not being shut down, is that there are 1500 FBI agents down at the edge of the "Sea of Trump", very very busy fishing for dirt.

 

On Twitter, I follow a certain journalist who wrote about us. It was a very favorable article, so I do not pick fights with her on other matters. Still, I'm sure you will find a recent tweet from her interesting. 

She laments that during her college days she had such high hopes for - she listed a few - certain socialist leaders primarily in South or Central America. Then she complains that all of them had let her down.

Will that overly affect her writing? I doubt it will. She has been conditioned to think in a certain way. It is part of the perils of being so young and having such limited experience. She looks like she could be my granddaughter. (of course, almost everyone does)

Though it is neither here nor there, I have become amazed that i can predict with almost total accuracy, from just knowing two or three circumstances, whether a person will root for Trump or Obama. This is a very predictably divided world we live in.