New York: US officials said on Wednesday that they
had shut down six “scareware” scammers, mostly operating from call
centres in India. They tricked over a million Americans into thinking
their computers were infected with viruses and scared them into buying
software to “fix” their non-existent problems.
America’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) worked with its counterparts
in Canada and Australia to identify and track the crooked call centres
that were located around the world, but were largely concentrated in
India. Microsoft also played a part in identifying the scammers.
The scammers stayed under the radar by using virtual offices, more
than 80 different domain names and 130 different phone numbers. The
agency said many of the scammers from India were using US carriers, and
the carriers agreed to block the numbers. This is one of the most
widespread Internet scams of the decade and has duped people out of
millions of dollars.
The FTC told Firstpost that it is working with Indian
agencies, but did not disclose confidential details as it said it could
not talk about ongoing investigations.
“In these outrageous and disturbing cons you get a call from someone
pretending to be from a major computer company who dupes you into
thinking you have a virus on your computer,” FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz
told a press conference, which also played an audio tape of one of the
calls.
“At one level, it’s like a bad Bollywood movie, but at another level it’s a rip-off of consumers,” he added.
The FTC has filed charges against six so-called tech support
companies for running the “scareware” scheme on tens of thousands of
victims. A US District Court judge, at the agency’s request, ordered a
stop to the scam.
According to Bloomberg, the court froze $180,000 in assets belonging
to the six companies involved in the scam. It has also taken measures to
block phone lines and websites the companies used to contact customers.
The companies in the dock are: Pecon Software Ltd., Lakshmi Infosoul
Services Pvt. Ltd., Finmaestros LLC, Zeal IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd.,
Virtual PC Solutions and PCCare247, Inc.
Leibowitz said the frozen assets could be distributed to victims once
they are identified, but he warned it’s rare to “get 100 percent back
in restitution.”
The orders against the companies, most of them based in India, came a
day after the final defendant in another scareware case dating back to
2008 was ordered to pay $163 million in restitution.
Decoding the “scareware” scam
The duplicity worked simply: Call centre workers pretending to be
affiliated with Dell, Microsoft, McAfee, Norton or Microsoft cold-called
Americans about supposed computer problems and said they had detected
malware on their systems.
They directed unsuspecting computer users to a Microsoft Windows
menu, and scared them by telling them that standard warning messages
displayed there indicated malicious programs were already on their
machines.
People were then convinced to grant the callers remote access to
their computer. When the victim paid, the scammers delivered useless,
free or even malicious software. Often, they also used the victim’s
credit card number for further fraud.
The groups also used online ads to present deceptive websites that
peddled scareware to unsuspecting Internet users. They sold “fixes” at
prices ranging from $49 to $450.
“These so-called tech support scams are the latest variation of
scareware,” said Leibowitz. “They have taken scareware to a whole other
level of virtual mayhem. Today’s announcement is a wake-up call to
computer users around the globe.”
Canada’s top telecom regulatory official, Andrea Rosen of the
Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, said two
related enforcement actions were filed in Canada.
“We make a difference by working together,” said Rosen, while
highlighting how the agencies and regulators collaborated across borders
to investigate and quash the massive scareware scam.
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