subject: Scams All Over! [print this page] I already posted article discussing the misleading applications and the tricks that are used to get onto somebodys computer. I realized the typical techniques included those aggressive, rude, warnings about the serious infections and viruses in my computer such as malware infections and system errors. Usually these warnings are fake and are used to scare the shit out of us so that we shed money, a huge amount of money to get these fixed.
In last few weeks I got to hear some new misleading applications chattering by my friends, one of them is actually working as a technical support provider in a well known company iYogi technical service Pvt. Ltd. From where she gets to know all the possible ways to mislead a customer and makes us aware in hand.
The usual scare tactics were employed. However, instead of using applications to convince users that their computer was in trouble, this particular group was phoning users directly to tell them that they had a virus on their computer. How weird can it get?
Once I got this similar call from was Online PC Doctors. The name sounds weird itself. They were offering free of cost live remote technical support. Wao! What comes free in this world? I wasnt much aware that time about scams so I believed them like a fool and went ahead with the call. They connected me to one of their agents to whom I explained my problem.
My computer was running really slowly and crashing a lot. The agent, Steve proceeded to tell me that I was the victim of a virus that had entered my computer over the Internet. He asked me to open up the Event Viewer and asked if I saw any errors or warnings in there. Naturally, I did. He then told me that these are indicating that the problem is very serious and I have to take care of it as soon as possible otherwise it can make my computer crash.
He said he will arrange me with a super knowledgeable technician who will resolve it instantly. They went for a remote session and went ahead to fix it. This entailed running Checkdisk, Diskcleanup, and emptying various temp folders. The technician came back on the call and informed me that because of so many malicious file in my computer, its causing the problem I was going through.
So now the twist, he tells me to avail the maintenance service and to clean up my machine I have to pay a value of $129.99 for a year subscription. Steve was pushing hard to me for the payment as I was a little hesitant about it. But I ended up agreeing to them.
In order to pay them I had to send them an email with my full name, address, phone number, email address, and full credit card details. I also had to write in the email that I authorized them to charge my credit card. They now had a lot of my personal details. They made sure the payment went through while I was on the phone with them! Once the payment was made, they could proceed with cleaning up the infection. The technician assured me to clean my whole system.
After 15minutes he technician assured me that the malware infection had now been cleaned up. I disconnected being very happy and gaga over it. But rite in 4 hours I again started to have the same old problem as it is. Huh then I realized that I have been scammed after my friend who is in iYogi solved my problem and told me the whole procedure they used is completely bullshit.
There are a lot of worrying points here. Firstly, this company had lied to me by telling me I had a malware infection. I had to pay for cleaning the infection that I never had. I also had to provide them with a number of personal details, including my credit card number. Unfortunately security software can't protect against this type of social engineering. If you get a call from the "Online PC Doctors", just hang up and advise your friends and family to do the same.
