Privacy

[wordy15]

Concerned that HP outsources to other countries for tech support. I have received a call from someone who said he was with HP and they had noticed viruses were being downloaded to my computer. He wanted to know if I was in front of my computer as he needed to get in and fix. I know this is a scam. my question: How did he know I had an HP and how did he know my cell number.?.  I have to wonder about HP's privacy policies.

[mdklassen]

> Concerned that HP outsources to other countries for tech support.

Ask the 45th President of the USA to talk to HP and "Hire American, and bring those jobs home".

> I have received a call from someone who said he was with HP and they had noticed viruses were being downloaded to my computer. He wanted to know if I was in front of my computer as he needed to get in and fix. I know this is a scam.

I agree that it is a scam.

> My question: How did he know I had an HP and how did he know my cell number? 

Phishing is phishing.  He took a guess, and he was correct.  He probably had prepared a response, if you had said "I have a Lenovo, not a HP".

Or, if your HP computer is directly-connected via an Ethernet cable-modem or DSL-modem, not to a "router", then your network adapter's MAC-address (nothing to do with an Apple Mac computer) is available to him:

Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [205.193.215.2] Scope Id: []

           NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

       Name               Type         Status
    ---------------------------------------------
    BLACKBEAUTY    <00>  UNIQUE      Registered
    WORKGROUP      <00>  GROUP       Registered
    BLACKBEAUTY    <20>  UNIQUE      Registered
    WORKGROUP      <1E>  GROUP       Registered
    WORKGROUP      <1D>  UNIQUE      Registered
    ..__MSBROWSE__.<01>  GROUP       Registered

    MAC Address = D4-3D-7E-28-16-B1

In theory, every computer ever manufactured has a unique MAC-address.

The first 6 characters of the MAC-address are assigned to an individual company, such as HP.

He could find your MAC-address, do a "lookup", and find that you had a network-adapter in the range assigned to HP, and assume that the rest of your computer was made by HP.

He might have been able to associate your IP-address [205.193.215.2] to you, and to search "social-media" to associate your cell-phone number to you.

Or, more likely, he (or his "Automated Dialing Device") could have been "randomly" dialing telephone-numbers, and you answered.

> I have to wonder about HP's privacy policies.

Policies are good.  Employees who violate those policies, for under-the-table money, are not good.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

No one from HP, Microsoft or any other reputable PC company will call you out of the blue and tell you there is a problem with your PC, or that your PC has a virus, etc.

These scammers can be very clever--some knowing your name, phone number and even your PC's model and serial number, making it a bit difficult to tell the difference between a legitimate call and a scam.

But my 1st sentence applies under any circumstance.

HP is asking customers that have been contacted by folks claiming to be from HP to submit the info to HP for further investigation.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05404707/