Tech support scams in which consumers are tricked by scammers into believing there is a problem with their computers that require the expensive services of the scammers constitute a major problem.  Tech support scams are increasingly common and victimize consumers 60 years or older about five times more than people between the ages of 20 and 59 according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). I have written about these scams many times in the past, but was prompted to write about it again after I received an email from a Scamicide reader who had been targeted by a tech support scam.

The most common tech support scams start with popups on your computer that provide notices of security problems that contain telephone numbers for you to call to fix the problem,  Whenever you get a pop-up, email, or text message that appears to tell you that you have a security problem with your computer, you should never click on any links contained in the message or call the telephone number provided. If your screen freezes,  which is what happened to the Scamicide reader, all you need to do is just turn off your computer and restart it. If you are concerned that you may be experiencing a real security problem you can contact tech support at the real tech companies directly by phone or by email using the phone number and email addresses you find on their respective websites.

If you call the scammers in response to concerns about your security, they often ask for you to enable them to get remote access to your computer to assess the problem.  Providing remote access to anyone to your computer can lead to a myriad of problems including identity theft and the downloading of ransomware.  Neither AOL, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft or any of the other tech companies ever  ask for remote access to your computer to fix problems.

TIPS

Often when your computer is frozen and you receive a pop-up ad purporting to tell you that you have a major security problem and warning you that you should not shut down or restart your computer because, they tell you, it would cause serious damage to your computer, the best thing you can do is shut down your computer and restart it.

If you are truly concerned about a security problem, contact tech support at the real tech companies you use at a phone number or email address that you have confirmed is accurate rather than a number or email address from the pop-up.

If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is to go to the bottom of the initial page of http://www.scamicide.com and type in your email address on the tab that states “Sign up for this blog.”