The top 2 scams targeting seniors online are romance scams and tech support/upgrade scams. These tech support scams start with a pop-up or some form of information that is telling you there is something wrong with your computer and it wants you to call a number or click a button which usually moves you to something more significant like malware infection or remote desktop software that jump starts the attack. The most important bit of information pertaining to these scams is that the scammers facilitating them KNOW WHO YOU ARE. They have databases filled with information about you. These are targeted attacks against seniors in order to steal their life saving away from them. These scams can go any number of ways, but they always end the same. The scammer uses fear, coercion and urgency to get the victim to mail money to them. Most of the time they will request cold hard cash be shipped using UPS, Fedex or USPS. There are some other versions of this scam where they request you purchase prepaid visa cards, gift cards or crypto currency. These criminals will use any means necessary to get you to trust them. They often will use the information they have on you to build trust, and then tell you that they are from well known and large companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook to name a few. Further more they will often tell you they have contacts at the FBI, IRS, FTC, Social Security Administration that can help you and then transfer you to speak to a fake agent that is part of their criminal network and part of the scam.

If you are a victim of one of these scams and need your computer cleaned. We offer an onsite service to remove the software used by these scammers to gain remote access to your computer, as well as inspect and clean the device of any malicious software. This service is a flat rate of $195.00. Since we come onsite you won’t need to disconnect or transport your computer. If you are interested in this service please contact us via telephone (585)563-4608.