Comantra (telephone scammer) has its MS partner status revoked

[Marcus Williamson]

Over the last year the UK media has run a number of stories about fake tech
support companies making unsolicited calls to people in the UK, such as this one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/jul/29/computer-phone-scam

One of the worst offenders is Comantra, based in India. This company boasted
Microsoft "Gold partner" status and always told me in e-mails and telephone calls,
when I challenged them, that what it was doing was legal. This was despite the
fact that they were calling vulnerable people at home, telling them that they had
a computer problem, then charging them by credit/debit card to "fix" it. I first
became aware of the issue when a friend of my father's received a call from this
company.

After trying for the last 6 months to get MS to recognise the seriousness of this
issue, I've had a response from MS indicating that they have investigated the
matter and Comantra has now lost its MS partner status, meaning that it can now no
longer use its MS connection to give it respectability.

The MS statement I received last Friday, which is rather light on detail, is:

"
We were made aware of a matter involving one of the members of the Microsoft
Partner Network acting in a manner that caused us to raise concerns about this
member's business practices. Following an investigation, the allegations were
confirmed and we took action to terminate our relationship with the partner in
question and revoke their Gold status.  There are no circumstances under which we
would ever allow partners or any other organisations to pose as Microsoft. We view
matters such as these extremely seriously and take immediate action if such
behaviour is brought to our attention and found to be the case. We continue to
encourage customers to exercise caution from scams and follow the guidance found
at http://www.microsoft.com/security/default.aspx 
"

I received the statement via the MS PR agency, Bite Communications. 

Contact: Mat Gazeley
E-mail: Mat.Gazeley at bitecommunications.com
Tel: 020 8741 1123

So, this announcement from MS is one step closer to getting this kind of scam
eliminated in the UK.

Hope this is of interest.

best wishes
Marcus Williamson