Is a New “Tech Support” Scam Impossible to Stop?

Like weeds, scams pop up all over the place when we least expect it, and once one is killed, another one comes to life. When the Internet came to exist, schemers saw an instant opportunity, and it’s obvious by now that the Web has become an unbelievable haven. Some have made millions both legitimately and illegitimately off various scams and schemes. But, here’s one I haven’t quite heard before.

In the UK, a new type of scam is going on that gives a twist to the old “holding your PC hostage” tale. In that one, someone would create a virus that would spread itself around the Web, and if someone’s PC became infected, it could be literally hijacked and locked. Of course, the process of unlocking was simple… if you were prepared to pay for it.

This new scheme is similar, except instead of hijacking a PC, someone will cold call you and tell you that Microsoft noticed a virus on your PC, and then to verify, the caller will get you to download some remote-assistance software. The goal is to get you to install it, at which point you’ll begin to understand that your PC does indeed have a miserable and hard-to-fix virus. In reality, you might not have a virus on your PC at all.

Once you have this software installed, the caller on the line says that they can help you rid the virus, but for a fee of, get this… £185. That’s as much, if not more, than a typical Windows 7 license! The entire scam seems utterly ridiculous, but believe it or not, people do fall for it. If no one fell for these scams, they wouldn’t be run. It’s all very unfortunate.

Even posting about it here accomplishes little, and it has nothing to do with our reach… it has everything to do with the fact that if you’re reading this, you’re likely well-versed with technology. Those who fall for scams like these, generally aren’t. The best thing we could hope for is to see this scam become really well known, so that the papers publish and news sites talk about it. If only that happened more often…

Apparently, something like that needs to happen for it to stop, because according to the article, there’s little law enforcement can do, especially if the caller is outside of the UK. Ugh.

The con is both fiendishly clever and ridiculously simple. The fraudster cold-calls the customer and tells them that Microsoft has detected a virus on their PC, then invites them to download a piece of remote-assistance software. No doubt reassured by the lines of indecipherable code flitting across their screen, the caller assures the customer they can make the virus vanish – but first, of course, they want payment. £185 to be precise.