Bing no longer allows tech-support adverts

Following on from Google's announcement that it would no longer accept adverts for payday loan companies, Microsoft's Bing is now no longer allowing ads for technical support. Following a spate of scammers and tricksters, Bing is doing its part to curb fraudulent tech-support firms.

You've probably had a phone call from one of these companies yourself. A pleasant sounding person – often with a slight accent – will call, claiming to be from “Windows,” or the “Windows Team,” and suggests that they've detected there's a problem with your PC.

If at that point you calmly hang-up the phone, you have greater patience than most people, but clearly it's a lucrative industry, as not only do they have people calling up the likes of you and me, but they even run adverts on search engines like Bing. Or at least they used to. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvh9TZ-pGRs']

“Bing Ads disallows the promotion of third party online technical support services to consumers because of serious quality issues that can impact end user safety,” reads the blog post about the change in policy. Bing is not taking any chances. If you're looking for customer support with your PC, you'll need to look elsewhere than Bings ads – which you probably should have been doing anyway.

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KitGuru Says: I've been cold called by these sorts of scammers a number of times. I used to try and keep them on the phone as long as I could, in the hopes that that might save a pensioner from being scammed that day, but I don't have the patience any more. 

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