Greg's Corner

Man loses life savings in antivirus scam

By Greg Collier

You hate to see the phrases ‘scam’ and ‘life savings’ used in the same sentence. Unfortunately, that is a harsh reality in today’s internet-connected world. Scammers and con artists will try to take as much money from you in the quickest way possible. One of the quickest ways to do this is to gain remote access to someone’s computer. In most cases, in order to gain remote access to someone’s computer, the computer’s owner needs to give that person permission. That’s where today’s scam comes in.

A man from the Chicago-area lost his life savings to scammers after he allowed them to gain access to his computer. The man used a certain brand of antivirus software that he pays a subscription fee for. The scammers called him up posing as the antivirus software company. They told the man that due to the pandemic they can no longer serve him and would like to give him a $500 refund. The scammers deposited thousands of dollars into the man’s bank account and then said that this was a mistake. In order to correct the mistake, they needed remote access to the man’s computer. That’s when the scammers were able to empty his bank account and his home equity line of credit to the tune of $200,000.

No commercial software company is going to call you up offering you a refund. Even if there was some kind of billing discrepancy, the software company would more than likely reach out by email. Even then, we wouldn’t recommend clicking on any links in the email. Also, it should almost go without saying that you should never allow someone you don’t know to have remote access to any of your devices. If you do, they can access just about any online account that you’ve used on that computer. Lastly, you don’t really need to pay for antivirus software anymore. While you may have had to back in the Windows XP days, Windows 10 has a built-in security feature known as Windows Security that is just as good as any paid software.