A reader in Chantilly received a bit of a shock about three weeks ago, and then got what nearly became a very expensive online education. One of the latest scams, or rip-offs if you prefer, to hit computer users via the Internet is an “anti-virus” scam, where slick operators promise to fix your computer online, and maintain it for two years, all for the “low” price of just under $270.
The reader, who asked that his name not be used, was charged just one cent under that figure, $269.99 to be precise. Given that good anti-virus software for Windows-based PCs can be had for as little as $8.99 at Amazon.com and generally for not more than $40, the price this reader was charged ranged between roughly seven and 30 times what they should have paid.
The incident started innocently enough: the reader was ending a Windows work session, and the program indicated there were updates to download. The reader let this go on overnight, returning to the computer the next morning. On firing up Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp.’s popular Web browser, the reader noticed something was different.
“I noticed that the address bar and the other tool bars at the top would go away when the arrow was moved away from the top, thus making the screen slightly larger,” the Chantilly reader later wrote. “This started becoming very annoying after awhile, particularly, because some of the material was not coming back. And it was time consuming.”
The reader then called “a number I thought was [Microsoft Corp.‘s] tech support,” which he said was obtained via a Google search.
He added, “They talked me into letting them on my computer. They brought up a page that said I had over 56,000 error messages and that told them that my computer was in terrible shape and even if I bought a new computer, the same mess would come through my Internet service and infect a new computer.”
Source:- www.washingtontimes.com
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