phone call · TechGuard Solutions is invented
The Cold-Call "Virus"
A stranger says their monitoring centre has been receiving warning messages from the homeowner's computer, and offers to look at it now, before it gets worse.
The story being told
A stranger says their monitoring centre has been receiving warning messages from the homeowner's computer, and offers to look at it now, before it gets worse.
How it really works
Nobody can see warnings coming from a home computer. The caller has no monitoring centre, no record of the household and no way to know what is on the machine. The "evidence" is whatever the householder is persuaded to look at (an event log full of ordinary notices, a setting that has always been that way), and it is read out as if it were damage. The whole call exists to reach one moment: the householder opening a remote-control tool and handing over the keyboard.
What to do instead
A real security company does not ring out of the blue about your computer, and a real support desk will not ask for remote access to a machine it does not manage. Hang up. If you are worried about the computer, contact the maker or your own IT person using a number you looked up yourself, and run the security tool that is already installed.
Sources
- US Federal Trade Commission: tech support scams
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center: PSA on tech support and refund scams
Checked 18 October 2026. Every statistic on this site is re-checked at publish time, and the reporting resources on the Help page are re-checked quarterly.