As technology becomes an indispensable aspect of our lives, many are faced with privacy and security threats that could potentially compromise sensitive information.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has now shut down operations by several tech support scammers who pretended they were representing Google, Microsoft and Apple.
On Friday, Nov. 13, the FTC, in tandem with attorney generals from Pennsylvania and Connecticut, closed down supposed tech scammers who are believed to have stolen over $17 million from unsuspecting people. The fraudsters pretended to be representatives of major tech companies, misleading people to give them access to their computers.
Tapping on the tech-insecurity of individuals, the scammers convinced people that their computer was infected with viruses and in lieu of money they would resolve the issue.
Per the complaint in Philadelphia's federal court, several scamming operations - all of which used the moniker Click4Support at some level - have been fooling people since 2013.
The modus operandi of the scammers was pretty basic. They places adverts on websites which would be visible as pop-up alerts informing the user that malware had been spotted on the PC. The ads would have a contact number and people would be instructed to call to get rid of the problem.
These scammers had a false "tech support" ready in their boiler room. The alleged tech staff would take the calls and dupe the callers by making them believe that they were affiliated with or employees of major tech companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Dell or Google.
Once convinced, the callers were made to provide remote access to their PC. This was done under the guise of the scammers conducting an investigation. The tech support team would then pretend to find several failures and errors on the caller's PC that caused the problem.
The scammers then pretended to erase supposed malware in non-infected computers. In some instances, as an FTC investigation revealed, the scammers deleted antivirus software on victims' PC or disabled alerts, halted browsers from auto updating security protections etc.
Causing more damage than anything else, the scammer siphoned thousands of dollars from the victims before finally being nailed by the authorities.
"We're pleased the court shut down these scammers, who defrauded consumers out of millions of dollars by preying on their lack of technical expertise," noted Jessica Rich, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "Our goal is now to get money back for the victims in this case, and keep the defendants out of the scam tech support business."
Photo: Brian Turner | Flickr
