Scam

We’ve written a couple of posts already about Online PC Care – Click here and here. However a regular customer of ours contacted us today to say that she was being plagued by “Your Online PC Doctor”. Note the different name, you’ll find more aliases in the comments to the previous articles. They’ve been calling her several times per week for the past few weeks and won’t stop. Today she got contact details from them and the number she was given began with country code 020. This appears to me to be an Inmarsat satellite phone number which, at least here in Ireland, would be charged at 5 euros per minute – that’s 300 euros per hour folks. So be warned folks, it looks like these guys really do not want to be called back or they’re getting a cut of your call costs.

I’d also like to appeal to people who have been victims of these types of scammers to comment on what has been done to their machines. I’ve personally seen a number of machines where, after showing the customer the Event Log containing errors as a method of scaring them into using their services, they then disable that Event Logging service, presumably to stop the customer from being able to check it afterwards. Has anyone seen any other examples of sharp practice? The question I’m asked most is whether they are putting Spyware on the computers that the connect to – has anyone seen any evidence of that?

Thanks for all the feedback to past posts. Awareness is the only thing that will prevent these people from scamming thousands more…

If you are suffering from this or any other  problem please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers  and technicians and we will be delighted to help.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Read our latest update on this type of scam by clicking here.

Following a lot of interest in our previous post (click here) and having been called in person by these scammers, we decided to write another blog post on this topic. More people seem to be receiving calls from a company in India pretending to be a computer repair company. They are now using the name Online PC Care. The phone number changes every time they call and when you answer the phone you will hear silence for 3 or 4 seconds followed by music for a further 3 seconds until the so called “technician” answers on the other side. They will know your First name and/or Surname. They will start to ask you if your computer is slow ( some even tell you it is slow, how are they supposed to know!). they will then proceed to ask you what type of operating system you have, is it Windows XP or Windows Vista. The technician will tell you the reason that your computer is slow is because your computer is full with “junk files” that are stored on your computer when browsing the internet. They will ask you to follow some steps that will show you the junk files and these are the steps:

1. Turn on your pc
2. once Windows is running click on the windows key and R
3. In the dialog box type eventvwr
4. Now go to Windows Logs on the left panel and select Application

From here they will show you some errors, after this they will talk you into giving them control of your PC or Laptop by remotely accessing it over the internet. At this point we are still unsure to what they do but after some time will ask for your credit card details. Be very careful not to give them your details. If you have been caught by this please call a trusted PC repair company such as ourselves to give your machine a once over. Make sure they have not installed any key logging software or left any remote access software on your computer that can grant them access to your PC.

Read our latest update on this type of scam by clicking here.

Below is a video of the same scam:

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

We had two cases today of customers with a phishing email purported to be from Eircom. The exact text of the email is shown below. However the summary is that it claims that Eircom customers will have their account deleted in three days if they don’t reply with their account details including password. I expect there will be many compromised accounts as a result.

Needless to say, this email is a hoax. If you receive this email, do not respond to it. To quote Eircom “eircom will NEVER send an unsolicited e-mail asking for your password or any of your account details. If you receive an e-mail asking for any of your account details, please DO NOT ENTER ANY DETAILS and delete it immediately”. continue

We’ve had a number of customers recently mention that they have been cold called by someone in India claiming that their computer has a virus, system crash or other such problem. They subsequently offer to resolve the problem remotely.  I have no evidence of how good or bad their service might be but their initial claims are certainly have a hint of scam about them. They have no way of telling what problems you have with your PC without your knowledge, unless they’re already working for the “bad” guys of course. People should be suspicious of these kinds of calls.

Their website is http://www.onlinepcdoctors.com/ which looks quite professional. Don’t be fooled. They also appear to have national phone number for many countries. There are details of them operating in Ireland (click here), in the UK and in Australia (click here).

There’s also YouTube video of a simlar scam, also based in India  below: