Tech support scam shut down by FTC (but beware others, like the one I ‘fell’ for)

From the file of, “Thank God someone finally did something about this,” an alleged tech support scam has been shut down by the Federal Trade Commission and two state attorneys general.

By now, you are well versed in the scam, which I “fell” for more than a year ago: One way or another, a victim ends up on the phone with a telemarketer, that person points out some suspicious-looking files on the victim’s computer, and then sells a “service” to fix the problem for hundreds of dollars.   The problems are just normal Windows operations, of course, and the service is bogus.  (I blame Microsoft, in part, for this, as Windows freaks people out on its own.)

On Friday, the FTC and officials from Pennsylvania and Connecticut announced they had convinced a judge to shut down one such operation that had tricked consumers into collectively paying $17 million.

“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,” said 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.”

The company involved in the FTC complaint went by several names: Click4Support, LLC; iSourceUSA LLC, and UBERTECHSUPPORT.  In this case, consumers were drawn to the service via online ads and popups.

“Consumers who responded to the phony ads were routed to a call center operated by the defendants, where telemarketers would frequently misrepresent that they were ‘a Microsoft agent,’ ‘Google support,’ or ‘work with AT&T,’ among other affiliation claims,” the FTC said. “The telemarketers would then convince consumers to give them remote access to their computers, navigate to harmless portions of the computer, such as the Windows Event Viewer, and mislead consumers into thinking their computer was infected with viruses and malware.”

Naturally, Windows Event Viewer is full of routine error messages, but that’s enough to convince unfamiliar consumers that something is wrong.  Then, the big sell comes. A telemarketer pitches a monthly service — with a price tag that might ultimately rise to thousands of dollars.

“The purported services include, among other things, correcting error and warning messages, installing security software, cleaning up the computer of adware, malware, and spyware, performing a ‘tune up’ or ‘optimization’ of the computer, restarting Microsoft services and reinstalling drivers, creating a backup of the computer, and promising to provide continuous monitoring of the computers and round-the-clock support,” the FTC said.

The complaint in the case alleges that the defendants violated the FTC Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, and the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.

It’s important to note that the style of attack is a bit different from the one I fell for, so while this operation has been shut down for now, others will almost certainly continue. After all, $17 million is a lot of money; as long as people keep falling for a scam, scammers will try it.  So don’t let down your guard.  If someone you don’t know offers you technical support on your PC, just don’t click.