Two Scams Gain a total or $120 Million

[Owade73]

The FTC has caught on to two companies selling useless products to technical illiterate people using tactics that "trick the consumer into thinking their PC is infected." The companies still have their original sites running... making huge promises that include one piece of software to "speed up your machine by '216 percent.'" 

 

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/19/7252173/ftc-says-two-bogus-tech-support-operations-scammed-120-million-from

 

It is sad to think that people out there fall for tricks caused by companies such as these. I ,personally, know people that would go for something like this and potentially open their computers to dangerous malware and even pay for the product. 

 

Make sure you do research into the company, outside of their own site, to make sure that it isn't a scam. Being on the LTT forums I expect most here already know how to be safe on the web but I will reiterate the importance anyways... if something is to good to be true, it probably is.

 

Original Article on theverge.com by Rich McCormick

 

[Deletive]

I thought this was going to a Ubisoft thread about ACU and Farcry 4.

[Fred Castellum]

This doesn't surprise me one bit to be honest. After working in IT support it becomes very apparent how few are actually educated in computer tech. 

 

[Priller]

It's mainly older people that dont know the difference and these companies take advantage of that.

[HippY]

It's mainly older people that dont know the difference and these companies take advantage of that.

Not really

you can do it easily with confidence and technical talk.

i mean if you start to talk crap about registries and kernels, many people will believe you, as you speak technical stuff and you seem to understand it

[Priller]

Not really

you can do it easily with confidence and technical talk.

i mean if you start to talk crap about registries and kernels, many people will believe you, as you speak technical stuff and you seem to understand it

 

Im talking about my experience of having to fix those issues and I mainly saw parents computers that their kids got ahold of and the elderly.

[Owade73]

Not really

you can do it easily with confidence and technical talk.

i mean if you start to talk crap about registries and kernels, many people will believe you, as you speak technical stuff and you seem to understand it

That is very true... most of the people I talk to don't know much about computers. Some don't even know what OS they are running other than, "It just says windows."

[c20h]

That is very true... most of the people I talk to don't know much about computers. Some don't even know what OS they are running other than, "It just says windows."

 

Agreed. That's why I keep myself on speed dial on all computer related queries for my family and friends so that they won't get fooled into things.

 

Just by throwing in a couple of fancy terms an average person can be thrown off quite easily.

[Guest Kloaked]

I thought this was going to a Ubisoft thread about ACU and Farcry 4.

Hue.

I think if I see more mindless posts about Ubisoft I'm going to break open my first beer and drink myself into a slumber.