Greg's Corner

Keeping secrets for scammers

By Greg Collier

A man from Indiana recently fell victim to a tech support scam. A pop-up appeared on his computer that said his computer had been compromised, and he needed to call Microsoft at the attached phone number. However, the phone number didn’t actually go to Microsoft. Instead, it went to a call center run by scammers posing as Microsoft technicians. They told the man his computer had been hacked. The disturbing part was that the scammers knew what bank the man used and the last four digits of his bank account. The scammers used this knowledge to convince the man that his bank account was in danger, and he needed to move his money to protect it. The man was instructed to go to his bank and wire transfer his money to a bank account set up by the scammers. In total, the man lost $79,000 to the scammers.

To get around any suspicions the bank may have had regarding the large transfer of funds, the scammers instructed the man to tell the bank that he was starting a business with his daughter in Thailand. As more people become aware of scams, scammers will come up with lies for their victims to try to avoid detection. We have seen this ploy used in several different scams. Sometimes it’s the phony grandchild telling a grandparent not to tell the rest of the family they need bail money. Other times it can be a fake police officer threatening a victim with arrest and giving victims the lie to tell a store employee if they get suspicious about why the victim is buying so many gift cards. Often, banks, stores, and money transfer companies are aware of many of these scams and will ask probing questions to try to rescue victims from a scam. Anytime you need to make an emergency financial transaction and someone asks you to keep quiet about it, the odds are you’re being scammed.

As far as tech support scams go, virtually no legitimate company will tell you to call them through a pop-up window. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook tend to discourage end users from trying to call them. Also, you should never call any phone number that appears on a pop-up window, as it’s almost guaranteed to lead you to a scammer. If you really feel the need to try to call the company mentioned, don’t just use the first phone number that comes up in a web search, as they can be scam numbers as well. Only use phone numbers you get directly from the source, such as a company’s official website. Lastly, you should never let anyone you don’t know to have remote access to your device.