Greg's Corner

Couple loses $350K In Apple scam

By Greg Collier

To be honest, there’s not a lot of information about this story. The report that we’ve read spends more time discussing the amount lost to the scammers, which, to be fair, is a lot. However, we can assume how the scam worked from previous scams in a similar vein. But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

An elderly couple from the state of Michigan are said to have lost $350,000 to a tech support scam. The couple reportedly withdrew money from several different accounts to send money to the scammers through a Bitcoin ATM.

The county sheriff’s office where this scam took place says that they are familiar with scams like this, but this is the largest amount lost they’ve ever seen.

What we do know about the scam is that the couple received a message on their computer that appeared to come from Apple Computers with a phone number to call.

This sounds a lot like the pop-up scams that claim to be from Microsoft. These pop-ups, which can lock up your computer, say things like your computer has a virus, or is in danger of being hacked. These pop-ups usually also instruct victims to call a phone number to resolve the issue.

When a victim calls one of these phony customer service numbers, they’ll be told some outlandish tale about how their computer is being hacked, and the hackers are about to steal all the victim’s money. The victim will then be instructed that in order to protect their money, they need to move it somewhere safe. This is when the scammers will direct the victim to withdraw their money from their bank accounts and send it to the scammers in the forms of gift cards, cryptocurrency, or some other form of untraceable payment.

What many victims don’t know is that companies like Apple, Microsoft, or Google don’t really know whether your computer has been compromised or not. If you receive one of these pop-up messages, turn your computer off. Hold down the power button until it turns off, if you need to. If the pop-ups continue, you may need to run a malware scan using a product like Malwarebytes. Malware and viruses are more likely to affect computers that run Microsoft Windows than Apple computers.

If you still can’t get your computer to function properly, try taking the device to a computer repair store. It will cost you a lot less in the end than sending the money to scammers.

But whatever you do, do not call the phone number in the pop-up message.