Monday, September 27, 2010

2gro scam - fake virus phone call

I got a scam call from 2gro at the weekend but fortunately - despite this blog's name - I was not taken in by a cold call purporting to be from a IT help desk offering to fix a virus infection and improve the performance of my PC. The guy was very evasive about what software was doing the reporting or how anonymous fault reporting would give him my phone number. Then he wanted me to grant him remote access to my machine to diagnose and fix the supposed problem. No way! I only do that to trusted people where I have initiated the call, end of conversation, goodbye scammer, *click*.

It is extraordinary the lengths scammers will go to create the illusion of credibility:
But it is all fake - smoke and mirrors. Nothing older than July 2010 even though the caller claimed they had been in business ten years. Both the office addresses are, in fact, of registration companies offering quick and cheap company formation services not real offices at all. No means of contact other than a phone number which takes you to the same call centre with the same flim-flam.

Stu Forrest's experience was exactly the same as mine:
"Received a brilliant Scam call yesterday"
"From an IT Company (www.2gro.com) suggesting that my computer had been sending warning and error messages to them, that I should go to a PC Share website, download a viewer so that they could go into my PC and show me the warning messages and make my PC run better. Read more..."

The Telegraph article explains more how these scams work
"Virus phone scam being run from call centres in India"
Britons targeted by cold callers pretending to be from Microsoft phoning to fix a fake computer problem. Beware cold callers – especially those claiming your computer has a virus. Read more..."

This has been a public service announcement :-)
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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:13 pm

    Just also received a call (about 11:30 GMT Saturday the 2nd October) from this 'company', I checked the website at their request, after ensuring all my virus software was active.

    They had me look at the bottom of the page, WOW a McAfee Trusted badge, like I couldn't find that image and put it on my own site.

    Would not, or could not confirm what part of windows was sending this information.

    When asked how long these reports had been being sent, I was told a couple of months, the machine is brand new within the last month.

    Also phone number is not right, HUGE scam.

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  2. Anonymous1:56 pm

    I too have just received a call from these guys. I work for an it support company and asked many questions in relation to what the virus is doing which of my computers it is on to see what they knew in regards to my network and the virus. they knew nothing. They got very nervous when i informed them i worked for an it support company and shortly after ended the call.

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  3. Anonymous2:10 pm

    These guys have moved on, and set up a new site and new telephone numbers.
    The new site is squadtech.net. numbers are 01613530323, 03213123418 & 08765123498.

    Its the same old scam but with a new name and bright shiny new website.

    ReplyDelete