FTC Settles with Tech Support Scammers — Again…
In October of 2017, the FTC and the State of Alabama settled with multiple tech support companies who were scamming victims out of hundreds of dollars. Now, less than a year later, the FTC settled with another individual tied to two more Indian-based technical support scam companies.
Parmjit Singh Brar was the operator of Genius Technologies and Avangatee Services. Although, these companies were not entirely legitimate. Brar was providing substantial support and assistance to an Indian-based tech support scheme. Brar’s involvement included receiving and processing customer payments and establishing and maintaining business accounts. Due to this involvement, Brar was fined $136,000 and is permanently banned from providing any form of technical support services.
But what do these scams exactly look like? The Tribune India stated,
“As part of the scheme, Indian telemarketers contacted consumers by calling them or using Internet pop-up ads disguised as security alerts to trick consumers into buying bogus tech support services, according to the complaint. The telemarketers claimed to be from well-known tech companies and warned consumers that their computers were at risk. If the telemarketers persuaded consumers to give them remote access to consumers’ computers, the telemarketers purported to find a serious cyber-threat and claimed they would install expensive and high-quality security software to resolve the problem in exchange for a substantial sum of money.”
Sound familiar?
It should if you’ve seen PC Matic’s most recent television commercial (seen below), or visited the Fake Virus Scam website.
It is time this scam is put to bed, for good. However, in order to do that users must know what to look for. Please, visit FakeVirusScam.com to learn more about this threat. We encourage you to share this information with your friends, family, coworkers, even on your social media pages. The more people who know about this, the less successful the scammers will be. Let’s work together to end the fake virus scam once and for all.
