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Have I been scammed.

D

Dave in Wales

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 15, 2015
15
1
Wales
http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/201...cammers-offering-costly-pc-cleanup-solutions/

I know this is MS but have they got me too, I have a MBP.

Safari froze and advised that I call...HELP LINE NUMBER : (44)0-808-143-3711

It looked all official and appeared to come from Apple.

Anyway, stupid, stupid me, wise after the event, called and the upshot is I'm £119.19 poorer.

They controlled my MBP while they were doing the 'work'.

Adblock Plus was installed, but I see that's available as a free download.

The billing advise is from someone called VIRTIFIC SOLUTIONS and billing is to Techhelp-upclick.com.
 
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Why would you call and give them permission to take control of your mac? Yes you were scammed and what's to say they didn't do something else to your mac? Did you not try the command, option and esc keys to force quit?
 
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well, i think so,thanks for your sharing
3sf
 
first, call your bank or credit card company and get the fraud investigation team to get your money back.

then, factory reset your computer, or do a system restore if you backed up.
 
zombiecakes said:
safari didnt freeze, you went to a website that said it did
Click to expand...

Normally when an app freezes, doesn't Yosemite kill them and bring up the "App name" has quit unexpectedly window with the option to reopen? Stuff pretty much never crashes on mine so I rarely see what happens
 
Dave in Wales said:
http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/201...cammers-offering-costly-pc-cleanup-solutions/

I know this is MS but have they got me too, I have a MBP.

Safari froze and advised that I call...HELP LINE NUMBER : (44)0-808-143-3711

It looked all official and appeared to come from Apple.

Anyway, stupid, stupid me, wise after the event, called and the upshot is I'm £119.19 poorer.

They controlled my MBP while they were doing the 'work'.

Adblock Plus was installed, but I see that's available as a free download.

The billing advise is from someone called VIRTIFIC SOLUTIONS and billing is to Techhelp-upclick.com.
Click to expand...
Yes, yes you have been scammed. It's a way of getting people that are ignorant about computers to install software that can "phone home" anything you do on your computer, including passwords for bank accounts and such. No computer company will ever have you call anyone in any circumstance if you have a software problem. Should any number pop up, you have simply installed shady software or gone to a shady website.

Report the transaction to your credit card and have it reversed. Completely format and reinstall your software.

This is the same type of scam that was used against elderly people that knew nothing about computers. An email, seemingly from their bank, that told them they needed to enter their credentials to keep their account active. Once they did it, they woke up next morning with no money. All transfers were "authorized by them" since it all came from their own account.

Consider it a lesson learned, and I will say again. NO COMPANY WILL EVER DIRECTLY CONTACT YOU FOR ANYTHING RELATED NOR ASK YOU TO PAY FOR SERVICES UNLESS YOU CALLED THEM(them being your bank, Apple, etc) FIRST, EVER.
 
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Disconnect from the internet ... back up all your crap ... do a clean restore of your computer. We all do stupid crap sometimes. I fell prey to a phishing e-mail ages ago. Looked like a legitimate e-mail from my bank and it asked me to fill out my bank info. I put my credit card number in and the digits on the back and the second I pressed send I thought ... "wait a minute ... oh ***!"

I didn't even turn my computer off ... I went right to the bank to cancel my card and get a new one sent to me.

This is called experience and you'll never do anything this incredibly stupid again. :)
 
The money is one thing, but you really need to format your machine asap
 
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Everyone makes a mistake, so don't feel too bad. Good of you to make a thread about your experience, so others can learn.

I'd follow the advice of others on here, and do a compete wipe/reinstall immediately.
 
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