Furious Computers

Welcome to Furious Computers.
Serving the Tweed Coast for over 15 years
For Mobile service call 0412 867 052

• Computer Sales, Repairs and Upgrades
• Virus Removal, system optimization
• Data Backup and Transfer
• Home and Small Business Networking
• Custom Built Desktop Systems
• Software and on-line Store

Beware of Fake Virus Phone Scam!

In the last couple of months I have had a number of customers fall victim to a very cruel telephone call scam where the caller claims to be from Microsoft or Telstra and advises that they have identified a number of viruses on your computer. They then ask you to sit at your computer and ask you to perform a number of commands which allow them to access your computer remotely. Once they do this they demonstrate to you right there on your screen that your computer is infested with computer viruses by installing and running a program that displays a long list of viruses which are supposedly infecting your computer.

<--- The scammers use rogue security program like this one that report dozens of fake viruses on your system to convince you to pay for their so-called solution.

To the uninitiated its pretty alarming. I mean the caller is from Microsoft or Telstra - and if you let them, sure enough they'll show you that your computer seems to be infested with Viruses! So that's when these scam artists zero in for payment. They insist you license the program they installed by providing your credit card details. Thankfully none of the customers who contacted me about this provided credit card details. No doubt they would have had their accounts hit with a hefty debit if they had done so. In any case, by the time the scam has got this far, customers found their computers just about inoperable because of the rogue program installed. In a couple of cases that came in the boot files had been tampered with rendering the system unbootable.

For future reference, Microsoft, Telstra and just about any legitimate corporate entity have better things to do than ring individuals about viruses on their computers. Further, although these scam artists claim they are ringing from Sydney or Melbourne or even Adelaide in one case, its more likely that they are calling from overseas and they are only interested in ripping you off. If you get one of these calls or something similar, because they keep changing the story as they go, be very suspicious and hang up!