Thursday, December 23, 2010

Microsoft Windows Support [ AMMYY ] scam

Watch out, this scam alert is all over the internet; so it's real!

We just received a phone call from an Indian speaking guy who said he was with Microsoft Windows Support and that our computer was emitting a warning signal that we had a "fatal" operating system errors that needed immediate correction. He told Mark that they needed to access our desk top through AMMYY remote access to fix the problem. Fortunately, Mark was suspicious and refused to play his game. After the call, I checked out AMMYY scams on Google.

Apparently this group has been pretty successful convincing gullible people to log into the legitimate AMMYY website and give these thugs access to their computers. Once in, the callers are accessing software and potentially personal data they can use for identity theft. They are also known to be selling illegal copies of software they "scalp" while they are hacked into the remote computers. According to the various scam warning web sites and blogs--some of these guys are in and out of your computer quickly--telling the person they have fixed the problem (once they have copied all the data they think will be useful to their purposes ). Other go so far as to try to get people to give them credit card or bank information to pay for "continued monitoring and protection".

I hope most folks are savvy enough not to fall for this scam, but thought you may know some folks on your contact list who may not catch on quick enough to prevent these thieves from stealing data from their PCs.

The easiest way to politely fix this is to tell them that you wish to inform them before they start talking that you are recording this conversation, [ really you are not ] and they will hang up, if it was genuine they would not mind you doing so.

3 comments:

2jazzi4U said...

They Called me today, with that same crapp, while on the phone with them I googled the information and found the whole thing is a scam. I hung up on them and they called back. I told them don't ever call my phone again and hung up. They told me when I asked why would I go to the site they asked me to go to, I have an anti virus protection, they said it does not protect my mother board, and the virus they are calling about is hurting my mother board. Watch out people. He tried to tell me he was from windows.

2jazzi4U said...

Thank You guys for posting your information, If you didn't I would not have known.

GuardianOfEden said...

Hi! Thanks for the update!
I fell for it though! I stalled a program they asked me too and even quoted an access number to them. I believe they installed a back door program. After becoming quite aggressive, insisting I buy their protection, I hung up. It wasn't until hours later I realised that they had my computer ID and could hack my my computer without a problem (their words). They had been playing with my sub-conscience and bullying me into buying their product, after convincing me to give them access.

The most alarming faculty of this invasion is they phoned my lan line number. which is PRIVATE and only, very recetly, connected.
NO ONE has this number accept a friend, a family member and the telecommunication company