jameswrx

iTrader: (4)

Had a very strange experience earlier which has really annoyed me. Now, I'm well aware of these phone scammers ringing up trying to gain remote access to your pc and charging for viruses etc that aren't there. But..

My Acer laptop has been dropping it's wireless connection since I've owned it, generally being annoying. So today I went online to see if there was a driver update and while on the Acer website I clicked on support and noticed they do a live chat window. I opened a chat with the Acer live chat and told them my problem and asked if there was a driver update or known issue etc. I was told they could "talk me through sorting it out" and asked for my phone number so they could help me out. Now, remember I'm on the Acer site so I think this must be ok, surely.. Give them my number.. 10 mins later I get a phone call saying they understand I have a problem with my Acer laptop dropping wireless and they can talk me through a driver update. Chap asks me to allow him remote access so he can sort the issue. I was obviously thinking hmm, but I'd instigated this whole thing on the genuine Acer website so I'm being paranoid.

Anyway, I allow remote access! Within a couple of seconds I knew I'd dropped a bollock. First thing he said was he's 'run a scan' and I 'have a trojan', then opened msconfig and said "look at these proccesses not running" I knew then I'd been scammed into this access. I started asking him how he'd run this scan etc and he started rushing and blurted something about paying for him to remove everything and update my wireless drivers. It was then that I just shut down the computer. But how the hell can this be via the genuine Acer website? I've even been back on there to make sure I wasn't on some other site. Do Acer sell your details to a 3rd party? Are Acer employees passing your info on unknown to Acer for a cut?

I can't understand how this happened via the Acer website!

Obviously now I'm paranoid. What should I do with my laptop? Are they likely to have infected it with something or is the whole thing just a story? Can they remote access you again or do you need a code every time?

Seriously hacked off about this, I was suspicous but just kept thinking how can it be dodgy when I started all this on the acer site! If they'd rung me out the blue I'd have told them to get stuffed straight away, just don't understand what's gone on really.

My grandad actually got scammed by a similar thing recently. He was telling me about it the other day that he had a call from 'the computer people' saying they'd found loads of viruses and problems on his computer. He then went on to tell me that it was ok because they managed to get rid of everything, but it did cost him £280!!

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Hi there

Do you have on this chap(scammer) tel.number?

Can you try tomorrow contact Acer directly,if yes i would try call them and ask them about this issue

About the issues with the those trojans etc I would definitely turn off remote access and download Combofix and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

Link on Combofix

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/combofix/

And Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/

Turn off the Remote Access and please try change all passwords just to be sure


Jura

jameswrx

iTrader: (4)

Thanks Jura.

I will contact Acer about this today, it certainly wasn't legit but it's worrying to go from a legit site to this.

Carlh

let us know what happens. that sounds like one of the normal scams. perhaps their website has been hacked or maybe, you've already been hacked and when you go to acer sites, your going through a proxy server and they're pumping their pages to you...

phoenixgold

iTrader: (2)

Did you put the acer site address in directly, or go through a search engine?

hodgy0_2

A lot of these website "chat" apps are just bots anyway

To make sure I am talking to a real person I ask them what is the "terminal velocity of a sparrow" is

boomer

Isn't that supposed to be "air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow" (oh, and you probably need a bridge)

mb

hodgy0_2

Mmm, let me get back to you on that lol!

yabbadoo4

iTrader: (8)

african or european swallow?