May 8, 2016
My poor elderly mom fell for this. They hijacked her friend's email (the subject line was "Taking Over" !), and when mom innocently opened the email and clicked on the link, a screen popped up saying that she had a virus and, for her protection, they would shut her computer down immediately--unless she called Microsoft at this number. She called and followed their instructions, allowing them to get into her computer and "fix" the problem. They then got her credit card number and charged her $339 for the "service." She proudly told me that night that she had taken care of a problem with her computer. My husband was able to find what they had done (one thing they did was install CCleaner, which you can download for FREE to "clean up" your computer). He was able to do a restore on her computer to put it back to where it was last week (getting rid of whatever these guys did). We then spent the next day closing her accounts and getting new ones, putting new passwords on everything, etc. Who knows how sophisticated they are? Maybe they just took her money . . . or maybe they took everything they could from her computer?! The next day they called--luckily I was there and answered the phone. I pretended that I was mom. The person (very strong accent) asked if the computer was working fine, and if I was happy with their service. I let her have it. I asked her how she could live with herself knowing she was stealing money from my 89-year-old mother. She kept saying, "Ma'am, how can you abuse me like this? What have I done to offend you? Why would I call if I was stealing? Your mom was the one who called me!" etc., etc. I didn't back down. I yelled and hung up. She called back immediately and asked again how could I abuse her! I hung up. Phone rang again. I picked it up and put it down. Rang again. Picked it up and put it down again. Why isn't there a way to find these people, to convict them? This is horrific. If I write any more I will begin to swear, so I will stop here. Just please hang up if these people call, and if you get that note on your computer, go to task manager and "end task" -- that's the only way to shut it off.