Jun 9, 2013
Someone identifying himself as "Sean" from "tech support", with an Indian accent, said my computer was sending a lot of errors to Microsoft and he could fix them. I had gotten several garbled calls from him and/or his fellow scammers and I finally bit, letting him in to my pc whereupon he downloaded a utility called "ammyy administrator" and dazzled me by running Event Viewer to show me the errors (something one can do one's self if one knows how). Big, big mistake! His pitch was to sell a utility that would eliminate all the errors and speed up my pc. He had 3 year 199.00, 5 year 249.00, and lifetime 399.00 plans to choose from which I could buy. He proceeded to try to download Mozilla Firefox, because my connection is slow, so that I could quickly make the purchase. Here's where I lucked out with the slow connection. He got frustrated with the wait and left me alone long enough to realize the huge mistake I was making. While he didn't get any financial info directly from me, I've spent the last two days trying to repair my desktop and I'm still not sure everything is ok. Sites to check out for more info on the scam:
1) http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/fo ... 25-49baa3b6482d and 2) http://www.ammyy.com/en/admin_mu.html
I've gotten similar calls from blocked numbers, 414-877-1395 in WI, and from 774-534-5678 in MA, an indication they're probably spoofed, i.e., not legitimate. My phones are on the DO NOT CALL list as well and he asked for me by name. The whole experience is more than a bit spooky!