scam

Question

I think I have been scammed. On Friday my computer started making a very loud noise and a message popped up that said I had been hacked that I needed to call the number on the screen. Foolishly I did and was told that my firewall and virus protection had expired and that I needed to get it back. The company was Smith Tech Holdings ,llc . They said they were in Idaho Falls, ID and their technicians were Microsoft certified. They supposedly cleaned my computer and reinstalled the firewall and virus protection. The more I have thought about this the more worried I have become. I very foolishly paid them for this scam and now I am very worried. I will contact my bank and see if I can stop the payment. I searched for the Smith Tech Holdings and the Usa.pc but was not able to find either. And the support number doesn't answer of course. Now I am afraid to use my computer. What can I do to see what they may have done to my computer?

Answer 1

Hi Robert

I am Dave, an Independent Advisor, I will help you with this . . .

I am sorry this has happened to you, sadly, that was definitely a scam, it is a well known Tech Support Scam, there was nothing actually wrong with your PC..

For the future, never trust a web page that indicates there is something wrong with your PC, never reply to Emails with the same content and ignore phone calls that claim to be form Microsoft or one of their partners

To be honest, it is not possible to know what they did to your PC after the fact, they could have done anything, the best solution would be to backup your files and re-install Windows . . .