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 scammers constitute a major problem.  Tech support scams are increasingly common and victimize consumers 60 years or older about five times more often than people between the ages of 20 and 59 according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

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. Tech support scams also are perpetrated through phone calls in which you are told that there is a problem with your computer and you need to make a payment to remedy the problem.  This is exactly what happened to a man in Waltham, Massachusetts who received such a phone call purportedly from Apple Customer Support telling him that his computer was infected with a virus and he needed to send $12,000 through a cryptocurrency ATM to pay for the cost of remedying the problem.

Fortunately, Dan Collins, an off duty police officer witnessed the elderly man talking on his phone approaching a cryptocurrency ATM carrying $12,000 in cash, identified himself and convinced the targeted scam victim that it was all a scam and saved him the money he was about to send to the scammer.

TIPS

Often when  this scam starts with a pop-up on your computer, your computer is frozen and the pop-up tells you that you have a major security problem and warns 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, as in this case, the scam starts with a phone call, remember through a technique called “spoofing” the scammers can trick your Caller ID to make the call appear to come from Apple or some other tech company.  The truth is that no tech company is going to call you to tell you there is a virus affecting your computer.  If you are truly concerned about a security problem, contact tech support at the real tech company 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 or phone call.

Finally, anytime you are told purportedly by a company or government agency to make a payment through a cryptocurrency ATM, it is a scam.  No company or government agency requires payment through cryptocurrencies.

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.”