Hey Guys !
After such a long time there is a good news for America, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Just read this news from Yahoo..!!!
After such a long time there is a good news for America, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Just read this news from Yahoo..!!!
US blocks online fraud schemes linked to India
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US officials said Wednesday they shut down a series of so-called tech support scams, mostly operating from India, which duped consumers into paying to clean their computers of bogus virus infections.
The Federal Trade Commission said a US judge has ordered a halt to six "scareware" operations and has frozen their assets following an investigation in cooperation with Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said the schemes involved calls to consumers in English-speaking countries from call centers in India, informing consumers of bogus infections.
The groups also used online ads which informed computer users of the infections, and then sold "fixes" at prices ranging from $49 to $450.
"In these outrageous and disturbing cons you get a call from someone pretending to be from a major computer company who dupes you into thinking you have a virus on your computer," Leibowitz told a news conference, which also played an audio tape of one of the calls.
"At one level, it's like a bad Bollywood movie, but at another level it's a ripoff of consumers."
The FTC six firms with deceptive commercial practices and other violations and asked the court to permanently halt the scams and order restitution for consumers.
The FTC cases targeted 14 corporate defendants and 17 individuals in six separate legal filings. The companies included Pecon Software Ltd., Finmaestros LLC, Zeal IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Virtual PC Solutions, Lakshmi Infosoul Services Pvt. Ltd., and PCCare247, Inc.
Canada's top telecom regulatory official, Andrea Rosen of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, said two related enforcement actions were filed in Canada.
Leibowitz said the FTC was sending a delegation to India to help work with authorities in such cases.
i m very happy by the government that they r stopping all this scam an i wold like to request please close all these scam as soon as possible
ReplyDeleteI would like to share a new phone number that is in use for these scams and the company goes by the name "Alpha PC Care" or "Instant PC Care" based out of India. At least 4 or 5 people are in this office running the scam. The phone number they are using is 360-450-3952. They use the fake names of Clinton or Gary. Four of them are males and one female. Clinton is the primary person who tries to convince you that you are infected. Anyone else have a legitimate phone number and names they can share here for Windows scams? Please share. I also have a recorded conversation of a scam phone call with this Clinton person.
ReplyDeleteHere are two known US Numbers for the Alpha PC Care scam: (360)450-3952 and (347)709-5945. There website has been down for a couple weeks, most likely due to this FTC probe into these operations. Anyone else have any US numbers for these scam operations? Let's shut them down!!
ReplyDeleteAwesome job guys...!!!
ReplyDeletePlease keep sharing their numbers, website and location.
**Together we can or we will make a difference**
its great and all.. but i just got a call today, as an American living in Canada atm, i say hats off to the home team.. but hopefully they can get things rolling here faster then they are.
ReplyDeletethis is not done by india only, it is also done by the peoples of
ReplyDeletepakistan,bangladesh,........
and the people who thinks that indian govermaent is not taking any kind of action regarding this , then they are wrong....
They arent. If the indian government was doing anything about this we wouldnt be getting phone calls. Thats why the FTC in the US has had to get involved.
DeleteGreat post! I was reading about tech and IT solutions on the ThinkSIS Twitter page, it sounds like it can really take a business to the next level. I'm happy I came across your article because it was a interesting and informative read. Thank you for sharing this with us!
ReplyDeleteAfraid they didn't do a very good job, i'm now getting 3 calls a day from these guys (i'm in Ireland). My phone provider has said they can't do anything about it. How do i find out who this company is, and how do i get them to stop ringing. Usually it wouldn't bother me but we have 2 babies and they ring at silly times....
ReplyDeletePick up there call and ask for their website and tollfree number. After getting this information report this matter to your police.
DeleteScammers are not doing a good job. So, it is not a fact which nationality they have but it should be stopped by the Government. We are happy to know that US blocks online schemes linked.
ReplyDeleteRobert
Call center
Unfortunately it hasn't stopped them here in Oz, My 83 year old mother is still getting them ringing every day.
ReplyDeleteAround 1200 call centers are running this scam from all around the world, so obviously this will take time. Meanwhile take their payment gateway URL address and report this matter to them. Sooner this all will be finished.
DeleteIts not going to either. ACMA doesnt have the balls or brains to do it. If your read the news article on this, it claims FTC has worked with officials in Canada and Australia to shut down those 6 centres. ACMA claim, quite plainly, that they dont have the power to deal with it.
DeleteThe only power that the US has is by threatening boycotts against the Indian government if they dont do what they want them to. This is why medicines that Indian companies can produce for a fraction of the price that the US produces them are not available in any first world nation.
Had 2 calls this morning already, the usual bollocks told to me, I kept them talking for a while to try and exact info from them. They are deffo of Indian/Pakistani/Bangledeshi origin. I eventually mentioned I was a computer nerd who worked for the MoD (which I did!) That confused the female, who then got a man to help her. He seemed to make some kind of joke out of it, I did not see the funny side. I do hope the Asian authorities ARE taking this seriously, I am sure they are!People today mistrust others enorormously, sadly to the detriment of society as a whole.
ReplyDeleteAnother good tactic to use against these clowns -
ReplyDeleteHaving worked in call centres in the UK (Freemans, Wilkinsons, William Hill) i know that pretty much everyone uses these little headsets with volume controls on them.
Clue that the call is a scammer? The phone will be dead silent for about 5 seconds before the person on the other end picks up with a small click. If you get that, speak as QUIETLY AS YOU CAN, saying "Sorry there is a problem with my phone, youll have to turn your headset up" "Can you hear me now? How about now?" If you can establish that the person has their headset up to maximum, then you get out your air horn, and blast it down the phone at them. That person will NOT be able to hear a thing for about a week.
In any western nation, for anyone to bring a lawsuit against someone, they must have clean hands first. So if someone then threatens you with a lawsuit for assault, laugh your arse off and blast them again.
This 360-450-3952 is controlled by Level 3 Communications and is a Washington state number. Level 3's fraud hotline is: 800-348-5457. I've reported to them in the past, as well as with the FTC directly (http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/contact.shtm). Please join the effort in complaining and demand they investigate themselves and shut this number down. I know it will not stop the operation completely, but it's something. It seems Level 3 is waiting for an actual crime to be committed and law enforcement to be involved before they will do anything. Problem is most people complaining are people who realize it's a scam while those scammed are lost on what actions to take. It's clear by simply calling and engaging with these clowns that it's a scam. So if that's clear, why not shut this number down? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteIt's still going on. They have bought well known domain names that have their company name as an extension. So if you search AOL email help, the first listing will be AOL EMAIL SUPPORT and then an 0800 number. When you call, it sounds like a battery hen, I was told, they have a 1,000 operators working there? They attempted to steal £200 and have stolen personal details, files and planted worms on my laptop to obtain further personal details and passwords.
ReplyDeleteSo this is what happened. It all started with my email account being hijacked. A letter was sent out to my contacts asking for a small amount of money. My account contact list was wiped and I was unable to send or receive emails as I suppose they were being diverted. It took me 2 weeks before I could fully understand due to work commitments etc. what was going on. I had made 2 unsuccessful attempts to contact AOL.
So I'm getting pretty desparate now, and search for AOL help, and the AOL Email support number came up, you don't see the extention on the domain name. I rang the 0800 number and it was an Asian operator. Polite, asking what the problem was. At this stage I justified the operator as an offshore saving cost by AOL and went ahead believing their mantra. 'My computer has a virus, I need to log in remotely and clean it up for £100'. As I had 2 laptops this was £200. Where was my brain! My instincts? So I allowed them to connect through a internet service called 'logmein123'. He then on my laptop showed me a cmd window and said some boloney which I could not understand. I had two feelings running parallel, but the overwhelming one was of relief. I paid revealing my details as you do, date of birth, address, etc. He downloaded free software from a site called hippo and a malware site I can't remember to clean my computer, it was then I started to wane towards suspicion but only slightly. When I got off the phone which was about an 1hr! I rang my bank and cancelled the card only because he said, the virus had been watching everything I did on the computer. So I still had not realised it was a scam. Then I logged off one of my laptops and when it rebooted, guess what all my data had been wiped. I called a number they gave me but it was dead and so rang the original 0800 realising I had been had and as the damage had been done wanted to see what the next operator would advise. He had no idea that I'd rung earlier, and gave me a different speil. He also took me to a different website - the first operator was Albion and this one was Itachytech or something like that. I was had.
Well, you are not going to believe this. I decided to contact my software security company who stored the software which was lost on their server. And type in the search engine Kaspersky tech support, I got the same 0800 number! I rang it unaware and heard the Asian voice, heard to hen house background noise and could not believe it. He admitted he was not representative of Kaspersky and of course told him what I thought.
All reputable online global names are having their names bought as domain names with extentions to their company. It is misleading and they do are not regulated due to their geography. The money they must be making must be huge. Where is it going to? For what purpose?
If we are kept informed we can be more aware, but I see no evidence of this, hence my detailed comment.
Hi, this is Tom,
ReplyDeleteThe number 360-450-3952 has finally been shutdown by Level 3 Communications as of 12/10/2012 for it's fraud activity. In your face Clinton, Gary, Ashley, and Rick (all fake names used at Alpha PC Care)!!! One point for the good guys. Oh, I know this doesn't shut you down completely, but I told you this number would no longer be in operation soon.
If you identify a number that is being used in a scam operation, you can leverage your local phone company to identify if they, or some other phone company, owns the number. Then you can report to their fraud division, as I did, and they will look into the issue. In this case, they determined that the number was being used for illegal activity (which was pretty obvious) and they blocked it. Nice!!
I will continue these efforts....
Tom,
DeleteThank you so much for being a part of this 'Scamming War'. From bottom of my heart I would like to thank you for what you are doing. This will really help many people around the globe.
Thanks once again !
I've been receiving these sort of calls every here and there, but it's getting really annoying now!!
ReplyDeleteThe first few times when they called, it would always be a bit noisy and they would be talking to someone else in the background, then the guy would start telling me that they're receiving error reports from my computer and then they would hang up without saying more. However, this time my dad picked up the phone call and passed it on to me, but the guy on the other side of the line told me his name was Max, that's a first, and he has been receiving many error reports from my computer. He then asked me if my computer was on. I told him no. He continues and tells me to turn it on so he could tell me where to open these reports, but I told him no thank you. He tried to make me turn on my computer and insisted that it's really serious. I just hang up on him. I was wondering if there's a way to report the scammer. I don't have caller ID so I can't track the number they used. If I report if to the police about this sort of phone call could they track they number down?
Hi
DeleteReport this matter to police might help you in tracking the number. But I would suggest you to report this matter to FTC directly (http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/contact.shtm). Polica can only help you to trace the number but FTC can freeze their account in charges of fraud and forgery.
wow - I would not have suspected this - great blog btw!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing valuable information. Nice post. I enjoyed reading this post.
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ReplyDeleteI agree
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi everyone outhere,i think i can help u all.guys these guys are idiot and they don't know much about computer,they all are trained to do repeated things every time they take a call.i plead u all to help me shutdown these company in india because directly or indirectly these company are affecting country's economy....plz do reply i need ur help these company are run in a small room with 4 to 5 computers and are mostly based in kolkata,banglore,new delhi and many smaller cities....
ReplyDeleteits back up and alive.
ReplyDeletegot a call tonight who claimed from what I thought was windows 35.
turns out he was trying to say windows certified!
LOL
I messed with him for a while and got him to tell me it was 9:30am where he was and it is 9PM in CA where I am.
he kept trying to tell me I didnt have to do anything just get virus off my computer and so forth.
he knew my last name and had my home phone number.
I dont have caller ID.