Broadband speed test ?

Yes - popular scam at the moment - good job you spotted it

If you'd been taken in, it would have been a way of getting into your computer

Yes of course they are correct. There is no way , absolutely no way, that anyone but you could notice that your broadband speed was too slow.

Unless he was looking over your shoulder as you used it, or (perish the thought) had hacked into your machine and managed to insert an app which linked his screen up to yours. (Not likely, don't panic)

Asking him just how he knew such a thing would have produced some highly technical sounding explanation, but it would all have been lies.

If you had been green anough to believe that he was trying to help, he would have had you go into the inner controls and twiddle some setting which did absolutely nothing, then he would "check" it again and tell you how much better it was.

Finally, he would suggest that you take out a subscription with his online firm to keep an eye on it in the future, or some such thing, and get your bank details to pay for it. After that, he would be able to use those details to take out money whenever he wanted.

You did the right thing to put the phone down on him. If you have a record of the phone number, tell Trading Standards.

I think your suspicions were correct Tiggy , you were wise to do what you did .

I used to get lots of similar calls from 'Microsoft' by someone with a very strong Indian accent telling me I was contaminating the internet with lots of virus - that must be played out and they have switched tactics.

Yes I have had these in the past - same type of call but variations on a theme, my machine downloading an illegal file etc. The first time I received the call (many years ago now). I said I would ask someone I trusted to look at my computer. I then rang BT (it was easier to contact them then), spoke to their tech department who told me all these type of calls are a scam and that it is not possible for anyone to know what your computer is doing without being connected to it and the machine being switched on!

Since then, depending on the mood I am in, I either tell the caller that and hang up or I string them along pretending to be worried and only after I have wasted their time and money do I tell them where they can insert their debugging "programme".

Here in France we get lots of the "Windows help line" ones at the moment. It is a bit of a giveaway as they always start with "Do you speak English". So now I just keep going in French pretending not to understand and they ring off. I do toy with pretending to speak a bit of English and saying "I must open les fenêtres, oui?"

I recently bought a little gadget named a Call Blocker as we had been getting quite a few calls daily either with no one at the other end or someone wanting to improve me, the home or the technology. The call blocker comes preloaded with some numbers but you can add more easily. It cost £40 but worth every penny. The phone is blissfully silent now.

Does it block the ones who don't give a number, or are "out of area" or "private caller" though? I don't answer "out of area" ones, but I can't just ignore calls with no number, as I sometimes get "telephone appointment" calls from my GP who does not publicise her personal number (she would get no sleep!)

A couple of years ago a naive friend of mine was taken in by this scam and spent nearly an 1/2 anhour following the fellow's instructions. Luckily for her she is so computer illiterate that she could not manage that so I think that he gave up eventually. He did not achieve what he wanted. All that she ever did was to send an occasional email. It would have been easier and cheaper to pick up the phone.

She now has an expensive laptop and I do not think that she has used it as she is frightened of it. To date it has not bitten her.