Tech company phoned me because my pc was slow?

Hey guys,

I'm from Australia and I got a weird call today from some it support place in another state (the caller was actually from an overseas call centre.

He was saying they noticed my pc was slow, mentioned something about noticing based on my ip address...that sounds suss to me.

Can someone notice that based on my ip address or is it possible that they have gotten into my pc? I have a firewall, antivirus, startup program detection and monitoring, one or two spyware programs etc.

I just thought I would check as my computer is actually quite slow of late, so don't really know if someone can see that my pc is slow based soley off my ip address. Or how he got my number. The only other thing I can think of is maybe my isp is using an overseas call centre but I'm sure he didn't mention the isp name.

Thanks for any thoughts and advice.

 

Have nothing further to do with them. I smell a scam.

 

:wave Welcome to Major Geeks! :major
It sound like a 'phishing' expedition to me. Somehow the people calling you matched your phone number to your IP address (which really isn't that hard if you're motivated enough) and I'd bet at some point they will ask you to offer up a credit card number or bank account number or internet account number or something before they actually 'help' you 'fix' the PC. If you're PC is indeed slow and you need help fixing it, you're in the right forum! Follow the steps in this guide to perform some general maintenance... then follow the steps in this guide which is the world famous Major Geeks Guide to Malware Removal. If you need more help after following the steps in these guides, start a new thread (reference this thread with a link or something) and we'll do our best!


[dlb]

 

I doubt they even did this. They probably didn't even know his IP address. Heck, I don't know mine at any given time!

More like a cold call saying, "I noticed you have high interest rates on your credit cards--I think we can help". Everyone has relatively high credit card rates and many will listen to the pitch. Stay away from them!

Follow Dlb's link to the general maintenance guide and see what it can do to cut out the dead wood.

I'm a big believer in formatting and reinstalling your OS at least once a year but not everyone wants to go through the hassle of re-installing their programs and saving bookmarks and email settings in preparation.

 

g'day magnatolia that sounds definitely like a scam to me.i am with telstra and quite often get phone calls from overseas which i screen with my caller id.be very weary and if you get a itemized account make sure you have'nt been charged for the phone call.if you have take the matter up with your provider .and yes follow dlb"s advice it will help speed things up.good luck.

 

I reinstall about once every two months...lol

 

weird...
so, they didn't offer anything?

 

agreed.

 

Stay away from them it does sound like a scam!

 

Personally, unless I initiate the call or the company is call me back from my call, I am very suspicious of anyone offering me services of any kind and always ignore them (that goes for someone showing up at my doorstep also) -- regardless of how "attractive" their sales pitch may sound. I dunno, maybe I'm paranoid (maybe because everyone is out to get me -- LOL). Too many people/companies out there looking to scam people.

For what it's worth, I agree with the comments about re-installing every "X-period" of time (eg. year, 6 months, 2 months, etc...). I currently use Norton Ghost 2003 (it's an an older version and you'll need a floppy drive) and have created images of my (new/fresh re-installed) system for such purposes, having backed it up onto an external disk or DVD. I scan and clean the system before backing-up. There are plenty of similar (imaging) programs out there, such as Acronis True Image (I think). It's not a FREE program. I haven't tried it myself, so perhaps someone else can provide [better] suggestions? Of course, you should also update your computer after re-imaging.

Good Luck.