It sounds like a relief from one of the most common scam methods of the past two years: the American FTC (Federal Trade Commission), in cooperation with several crime defense organisations such as the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency as well as law enforcement officials in India, has arrested 17 people in responsible positions of fraud companies.
As the Guardian reported, Indian fraud companies used locations and acounts in the USA and Canada to funnel the money back to India. Namely it were the following companies whose assets have been frozen: Pecon Software; PC Care247; Connexxions Infotech; Connexxions IT Services Private Ltd; Zeal IT Solutions; Lakshmi Infosoul Services Private Ltd; Virtual PC Solutions, First PC Solution; Direct PC Solution; Virtual IT Supports; Global Innovative Service; 24x7pchelp; 24x7pctech; Transfront Solutions; New World Services; Megabites Solutions; Mega Bits; Greybytes Cybertech; Bluesystemcare; Shine Solutions Private Ltd.
Tellows reported about the so-called PC doctor scam method on its blog earlier this year: http://blog.tellows.co.uk/tag/virus/
The scam was addressed to citizens of all English-speaking countries, with calls originating from India. Briefly said, the scam consisted in calliing the victims on the phone with the caller introducing himself as an employee of microsoft calling because of a virus that had been detected on the called person’s PC. The caller would ask the victim to open the Windows Event Viewer – a part of the Windows operating system that regularly gives error warnings, but these have no negative influence on a computer’s functioning.
Consequently, the caller would instruct the person on the other end to download a pseudo-anti-virus programme for a fee or even subscribe the person to a regular update for the application that should fix the computer problem. Even worse: in some cases the fraudsters were asking for personal information and bank account details to gain their victims’ money. According to the Guardian, the fraudsters were in average able to ripp more than $ 800 off each conned person.
Tellows has records of the following UK numbers connected to the fraud:
- 01234765093
- 02033718215
- 01578596326
- 01227949371
… and if you should know of any others – report them here!
Yours,
Team Tellows
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