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In Southern California, Helen (who’s asked that we not use her real name), a retiree in her 80s, was reading her sister’s obituary on the web when a pop-up screen suddenly appeared, announcing that her computer had been infected with a virus.
“Do not turn off your computer!” a loud voice warned through the computer’s speaker.
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Helen was instructed to call the phone number that appeared on her screen, according to her son, a retired U.S. intelligence agency official who — with her permission — shared her story with AARP. She soon found herself talking to someone who claimed to be a tech support staffer from Microsoft.
He asked for her cellphone number, and he probably was able to use that number to look up where she banked because such information exists in dark web databases. (The Perfect Scam explains the dark web in this episode.)
Need tech support?
“There are 36 hackers in your computer right now,” he warned her. She trusted him because, after all, he knew where she banked, and she hadn’t divulged that information, or even her name. Then he convinced her to download software that gave him access to her computer and its data.
Helen didn’t realize that the helpful technician was actually part of a fraud ring, and that the pop-up on her computer was a fake, possibly triggered by a malicious ad planted on a website.
He offered to put her through to the security department, where someone posing as a bank official told her that hackers already were stealing from her account, and she needed to quickly move her funds to a new, safe account.
Helen followed his instructions, withdrawing cash and buying gift cards and sending wire transfers and cashier’s checks to addresses in other cities. She lost most of her retirement nest egg to the criminals, before a bank fraud investigator intervened, convincing her to speak to her family about what she was doing.
Huge losses from tech-support scams
News of the global Microsoft outage on July 19, 2024 provides an opportunity for scammers. The outage, which impacted computer users at home and businesses causing massive airport delays and forcing hospitals to cancel procedures, was caused when CrowdStrike, a security company, attempted to update their security systems.
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