Technical support scam

A technical support scam (often abbreviated tech support scam) refers to phone fraud that claims to be a legitimate technical support service. It can either begin by a cold call, usually from a legitimate-sounding third-party like "Microsoft" or "Windows" or it could begin with an unsuspecting user searching for commercial technical support via a popular search engine such as Bing or Google. Remote desktop software is used to connect to the victim's computer, and the scammer then uses a variety of confidence tricks that employ various Windows components and utilities (such as the Event Viewer), third-party utilities (such as rogue security software), and reference sites like Wikipedia or summaries written by security companies to make the victim believe that the computer has issues that need to be fixed, before proceeding for the victim to pay for "support". These scams usually target users, such as senior citizens, who are unfamiliar with the tools used in the process, especially when initiated by cold calls.

In English-speaking countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, such cold call scams have occurred as early as 2008, and originate primarily from call centers in India.

Operation

Technical support scams typically rely on social engineering and confidence tricks. The scammer instructs the victim to download and install a remote access program, such as TeamViewer, and provide them with the details required to log into their computer using the software. After gaining access, the scammer attempts to convince the victim that their computer is suffering from problems that must be repaired. A number of common methods are used during many tech support scams—most of which involve misrepresenting the content and output of various Windows tools and system directories as evidence of malicious activity, such as viruses and other malware:

• The scammer may direct users to Windows' Event Viewer, which displays a log of various events for use by system administrators and expert users to troubleshoot problems. Although many of the log entries are relatively harmless notifications, the scammer may fraudulently claim that log entries labelled as warnings and errors are evidence of malware activity or that the computer is becoming corrupted, and that the errors must be "fixed".
• The scammer may present system folders that contain unusually named files, such as Windows' Prefetch and Temporary files folders, and claim that the files are evidence of malware on the system.
• The scammer may misuse Command Prompt tools to generate suspicious-looking output, such as for instance, the TREE command, which displays a listing of files and directories. The scammer may claim the innocuous program to be a malware scanner, and manually enter text purporting to be an error message (such as "security breach.. trojans found") after the conclusion of the output.
• The scammer may misrepresent values and keys stored in the Windows Registry as being malicious, such as innocuous keys whose values are listed as not being set.
• The "Send To" function on Windows is associated with a globally unique identifier. The output of the command prompt command assoc, which lists all file associations on the system, displays this association with the line ZFSendToTarget=CLSID\{888DCA60-FC0A-11CF-8F0F-00C04FD7D062}. The scammer may claim that this is a unique ID used to identify the user's computer, although this ID is identical on all Windows systems. Alternatively, the scammer may claim that the "CLSID" listed is actually a "Computer Licence Security ID" that must be renewed.
• The scammer may also claim that the system's "problems" are a result of "expired" warranties on its hardware or software, and coax the victim into paying for a "renewal".

The scammers then perform questionable tasks to "repair" the system, such as installing trials of other legitimate security software, installing malware (including rogue security software) designed to collect the user's personal information, and deleting the aforementioned files that were previously claimed to be malware. They then coax the victim into paying for their services or the software designed to "repair" their computer, and in turn, gain access to the victim's credit card information, which can be used to make additional fraudulent charges. Afterwards, the scammer may also claim that the victim is eligible for a refund, and request the user's bank account information—which is instead used to steal more money from the victim rather than providing the promised refund.

Unethical and fake "support" companies

The great majority of the complaints and discussion about "companies" that cold-call and offer "technical support" report them as being not merely incompetent or ineffective, but actively dishonest, doggedly trying to convince the victim of non-existent problems by trickery, and when possible damaging a computer they gain access to. Computer support companies advertise on search engines like Google and Bing, but some are heavily criticised, sometimes for practices similar to the cold callers. For example India-based iYogi was reported by InfoWorld to use upsell practices. Their sales practice has been criticized as being very aggressive. There are customer reviews listed on different review websites like www.consumeraffairs.com and www.sitejabber.com. The reviews show the name of the customers and talks about the experiences they had with iYogi.

Prosecution and lawsuits

• In March 2014 a man from Luton, England who hired people to work for an India-based call centre that operated such scams was given a four-month sentence, suspended for 12 months. He was fined £5,000 (US$8300), and had to pay £5,665 ($9400) in compensation and £13,929 ($23,160) in prosecution costs
• In December 2014 Microsoft filed a lawsuit on a California-based company operating such scams for "misusing Microsoft's name and trademarks" and "creating security issues for victims by gaining access to their computers and installing malicious software, including a password grabber that could provide access to personal and financial information."

See also

• List of confidence tricks
• Telemarketing fraud
• Virus hoax

External links

• Microsoft page on tips to avoid such scams
• Example of a scam with narration and screen recording on YouTube