Beware of US-based Tech Support Scams

  • 6 August 2014
  • 5 replies
  • 89 views

Userlevel 7
Badge +54
A good in depth article giving methods, stats and transcripts. Quite a large article though but certainly worth reading.
 
August 6, 2014   |   By Jérôme Segura 
 
"Most people associate tech support scams (AKA the fake Microsoft support call) with technicians sitting in a crowded and buzzing boiler room somewhere offshore.
Indeed all of the tech support scams we have tracked so far were with companies located either in Mumbai, Kolkata or elsewhere in India. But last month, we stumbled upon fake warning pages urging users to call a number for ‘emergency tech support’.
When we rang the number, we were surprised to hear that the technician sounded American. It turned out that their company was based in ‘the sunshine state‘ of Florida, USA.
 
To get an idea of how popular these scamming pages are, take a look at some stats (courtesy of SimilarWeb):"
http://cdn.blog.malwarebytes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/traffic.png
There were 11.6 million visits in June to systems32security.com.
 
 
Full Article
 
 
 

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Userlevel 7
Badge +56
There's also a lot of them out there advertising on Google to try and trick you.  This article gives a good overview.  For instance, if you Google "Webroot support", this is what you see at the top:
 


 
Recently we saw an uptick in complaints by people who thought that the iYogi add was the number for our support.  They asked us why we were charging for support, when we don't charge extra for it.  Turns out that iYogi had upped their bid on the adwords and had snagged the top spot above us.  So we had to increase our bidding on the adwords terms to get the top spot back.
 
Userlevel 7
Badge +56
It has already happened it the past as this Webroot user Got scammed. :@
 
https://community.webroot.com/t5/Webroot-SecureAnywhere-Complete/Third-Party-Support-Company/m-p/63877/highlight/true#M4656
 
Daniel
Userlevel 7
Badge +54
These examples are clever and far too easy for the unsuspecting to actually fall for them.
 
August 21, 2014   |   By Jérôme Segura
 
Just when we thought we had seen it all, scammers come out with an elaborate and clever scheme to trick users into calling for bogus tech support. If you are looking to download one of the popular antivirus or anti-malware product on the market, watch out before you click.
 

Lookalike pages

Fraudsters have set up fake download pages that look incredibly like the authentic ones. Judge for yourself:
 
Full article including demos
Userlevel 7
Good article jasper, one needs to be very careful without a doubt.
Just had a scammer call telling me I had an internal (hardware infestation) in my computer.  hung up once. Blamed hang up  on him when he called back. Kept him talking until he said he worked for "Windows" so asked if he worked for Microsoft. He said no.  I told the idiot Windows IS  MIcrosoft.  On is call back I got a name Novetel (carrier) and his number 210-249-0540.  On his call back I screamed in his ear MIcrosoft does not call anyone and he was a crook and hung up. That was fun. No call back. 😉

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