On 28/08/2010 16:33, Tim Lamb wrote:
Several times, recently, I have had a telephone caller using poor
English trying to persuade me to go through a 10 minute series of tests
on my home computer.

Bet these tests involve you looking at the event viewer and seeing lots
of error messages.

am I alone or is this a common event?

You are not alone my M-I-L received this 'phone call and she doesn't
even have a computer. There are lots of reports of this type of scam.
it has even made the computer press.
www.computeractive.co.uk/2266990