Understanding and getting rid of tech support scams
Computer tech support scams are still a major concern these days. A lot of people are still getting scammed due to lack of information about it. Learning about what are tech support scams can help you get rid of scammers.
Understanding what is tech support scam
A tech support scam is a telephonic fraud activity in which a person claims to be a certified technician offering a legitimate service. Read more about what is tech support scam.
Who are tech support scammers potential targets?
Tech support scammers potential targets are usually old peoples and people with very less computer knowledge.
How does tech support scam works
The tech support scam work both ways, either the scammer will call you or they will trap you to call them.
Tech Support scammers calling you
In this scenario the scammer call random people’s through out. Their caller id is either private or a 1800 toll free number. This is so because they are using VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) to call you. Its difficult to detect the physical location of a scammer when the call is from internet. You might be wondering that how did they got your name and number? The fact is that they are calling people randomly from yellow pages or white pages or phone directories, that have your information.
What happens on a tech support scam call?
The scammer will pretend to be calling you from Microsoft or other such IT firms. Their aim is to convince you to buy some of their fake services. They will do anything to convince you. They might tell you that they are notified by your computers logs that there’s some problem in your PC. They will try to get you through some processes which shows the error logs of your computers. To be honest these error logs are normal. These are present on all computers. These logs are generated each time you switch on or off your computer or laptop. These tricks usually works for the scammers if the victim doesn’t know much about computers apart from their work. Once they succeed here they will move forward to gain access of your computer.
Accessing Your Computer
They will try to convince you to provide them the access of your computer, so they can describe you about the problems. The scammers usually use some free remote desktop software to access your computer. Once they get the access, they will try to do some fake computer scans by running tree commands in your pc, which shows paths and directories in command shells and actually looks like some scan is going on. They might try showing some more fake issues which do not exist in your machine. They might even try to scare you. Once you are convinced by them they will try to sell you some fake services to get rid of these issues and so on. If you refuse, they might threaten you to buy their services.
How to get rid of Tech Support Scams?
It’s easy, don’t try to entertain such calls. Microsoft or other such firms will never call you for support or services, unless you reach them. If somehow you are in the call and the scammer have the access of your computer, shutdown or restart your computer. Remove the software they used to access your computer. If you still have the doubt, call the local computer technician for help.
Are you located in Edmonton, Ab Canada? Need Help With Your Computer?
Call us on 780-999-3432 or check out our services – computer repair, laptop repair, mac repair, virus removal
Victim getting trapped by the scammers to call them back
In this case a victim computer is targeted to call back the scammer. You might see some popups telling that your computer has problems, call the toll free number for help and so on. These are malware’s, when you click some of the links on your email or visit some websites or sources you get redirected to these malicious websites. In some cases it was found that few such malware’s were also targeted via search engine ads, when you clicked on those links or ads you get these popups.
What happens with these malicious websites?
These malicious sites not just only shows popups but also try to bypass some uac settings to download malware’s in your computer. Once these malware gets in your computer, your computer will freeze or start lagging and popping up these messages. In some cases rather then downloading malware’s in your computer these website bypass multiple file downloads. Downloading hundreds of files at the same time freezes your computer.
Is your computer screen turned black with a message to call a toll free number for help? Cannot see your files, folders and so on?
Well there’s a malware in your computer and its terminating the explorer.exe in your windows computer each time you turn your pc or laptop on. termination of explorer.exe turns your computer screen blank. The message that you see is a message from vbs script. You can open your task manager and run a new task as explorer.exe and your apps and folders will be visible again. You can find the malicious script, popup message source and remove them to get rid of it. You can consult your local technician for help.
Need a repair solution for your computer? Need your computer to be fixed in no time?
We provide on site computer repair service in all areas of Edmonton, Ab, Canada, with no extra travelling charges or call out fees.