• Business & Economy
  • Politics & Government
    • Campaign Countdown
      • 2012 Reports
  • Sports
  • High School Sports
    • Football Friday Night
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • All Topics

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

  • Home
  • Audio Archives
  • Contact Us
  • Reporters
  • Affiliates
  • Affiliate Support
  • PostsComments
You are here: Home / Business / Better Business Bureau warns of talking computer scam

Better Business Bureau warns of talking computer scam

December 15, 2017 By Matt Kelley

Iowans are being warned about a new high-tech scheme that may catch you off-guard while surfing the ‘net.

Jim Hegarty, president of the Better Business Bureau in Omaha-Council Bluffs, says it’s a sophisticated scam.

Hegarty says, “You could be sitting at your computer and all of the sudden, the computer starts talking to you, telling you: ‘This is Microsoft tech support. We’re shutting your computer down because we’ve detected a virus. Call this 800 number to resolve the problem.’ And it’s just a computer voice.”

Rest assured, he says, there’s nothing wrong with your computer but crooks are trying to dupe you into giving up your personal information. Also, he says don’t bother calling that toll-free number or you’ll hear more tall tales.

“They claim to be with a subsidiary of Microsoft, they want to help solve the problem,” Hegarty says. “It’s going to be $199 to get everything cleaned up or you can buy their virus protection. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of individuals have given these people their credit card.” Coincidentally, he says about 90-percent of the people who fall for the scam don’t even realize they’ve been victimized.

“What they’ve done is given their credit card information to some bad actors, likely in India, and they’ve also allowed these individuals into their system where they can operate with malware, low and slow,” Hegarty says. “If you allowed them in to fix it, shut down your computer and take it to a reliable tech support company.” Have the pros clean up the problem correctly, he says, or any private information on your computer could be at risk.


Print pagePDF pageEmail page

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Google
  • Facebook

Filed Under: Business, Crime & Courts, News

Featured Stories

Younkers stores in Iowa look to be closing

Governor approves new Iowa law on ‘food shaming’ and unpaid school lunch debt

Iowa Senate honors Wally Horn for 46-year legislative career

Clive massage therapist facing sexual assault charges

State offering a second license to manufacture medical marijuana

TwitterFacebook

Morris headlines women’s pole vault at Drake

Brady Ellingson joins Drake

Weather forces college baseball teams to adjust

Field is set for Grand Blue Mile

Iowa’s Connor McCaffery awarded scholarship

More Sports

Tweets by @RadioIowa

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

RSS O.KayHenderson.com

  • Campaign surrogates: asset or liability? September 22, 2016
  • Proposed slate of 2016 RNC delegates from #IAGOP May 20, 2016
  • AUDIO: #IAGOP chairman talks about idea of ‘brokered’ convention March 18, 2016
  • @TerryBranstad statement on Obama nominating his cousin to SupCo March 16, 2016
  • ‘Substantial growth’ in voter registrations for both parties from #IACaucus March 15, 2016

Archives

Copyright © 2018 · Learfield News & Ag, LLC