If you know what you are looking for with tech support scams than you will likely not ever become a victim however the problem, clearly, is that millions of people find themselves embroiled in scams and fake “pros” who are looking to pilfer your hard earned money. Tech Support Scams are a multimillion-dollar industry globally and they rely on you not knowing what to look for. They rely on you to not be that tech savy. And they rely on fear.

Tech Support Scams

Most of us walk in a digital world with analog understanding. After all, it’s enough to know how to use a piece of technology, and you can’t be bothered with learning about why it works or how it works. You certainly aren’t alone and your stance on tech is completely understandable. If we were all tech gurus, what would the Geek Squad even do?

That said as time marches on its getting harder and harder for these types of scams to work on the everyday Joe. As the everyday Joe now includes a good amount of millennials who are way more tech savvy than previous generations. So this leaves our elderly the most vulnerable for this type of scam. The elderly is presumed to be much less tech-savvy and easily trusting. According to the FTC people over 60 are 5x more likely to be taken advantage of in this way.

Not only are they attempting to milk money out of you for their “help” with providing you tech support, but often times they’ll also try walk you through an install of a malicious virus of their design aimed at an ongoing attack to extract as much money and data from you as possible.

How Does This Work?

Typically there isn’t one favorite way of getting their victims. However more often than not it can fit into one of these scenarios.

• You start receiving popups on your screen that states your computer has been compromised.
• Scam sites that are most often accidentally accessed by common URL typos.
• Phishing emails that state you have an infection
• Spoof Caller IDs so that the caller looks as though they are from a legitimate company.
• Online ads for tech help.

The number one technique shared amongst all of the scenarios is the use of Fear to manipulate and motivate the target. Our lives are on our personal devices and the thought that something could happen to all our files, our connections, our personal data is enough to put you in a home for the mentally unwell.

How Can I Stay Safe?

• Security Software – While there are great free services for virus protection and security, we suggest you use a paid app. They are quite affordable and the peace of mind they provide is well worth it.
• Ignore unsolicited Calls – If you don’t recognize a caller, do not answer it. It’s that simple. If you want further information on that caller’s identity try using Check Peoples Reverse Phone Lookup. If you recognize the company, call them back and see what they need.
• Delete/Close/Don’t open emails or popups that you do not recognize. It may seem very targeted, as they know exactly who you are and that you are already a customer. But do not take the bait. Close it out. You know who your providers are, you can call them directly.
• Hang up as soon as you think you might be speaking with a scammer. It’s possible you are paying for every minute they get you to stay on the line. Cut it off immediately.
• Never give any payment information, even gift cards. If you didn’t seek them out specifically to use their service you should never give your credit card information over the phone.

It is easy to become a victim if you don’t know what to look out for. If you have family or friends who might be susceptible to these types of scams, you should make them aware and tell them what to look out for. There is a good chance they’ve already been taken advantage of and still don’t realize it.

The post What Are Tech Support Scams? appeared first on CheckPeople Blog.

Spoofing: Fake Numbers Are Everywhere

Alright, we’ve got two decades of the twenty-first century in the books and instead of cool flying cars, and Star Trek replicators, what do we have? Call ID Spoofing!! Still! (*starting my breathing techniques*). And if that’s not bad enough, it’s not as if it’s ONLY deployed by scammers. If it were, maybe we’d all get a cute chuckle every time we see one of these calls come through. Instead, it’s also used by telemarketers and bill collectors (I can’t even…). Caller ID Spoofing allows these shady folk to mask their number to appear as if it’s local. You might be more tempted to pick up a local call you don’t recognize than one from, say, a toll free number.

Without wasting a second, they’ll start right in to whatever pitch the caller has for you. The idea is that you are to become their next victim, and the longer they can keep you on the phone, the longer they have the opportunity to convince you to buy into their scam. This, unfortunately has become quite a profitable money generator for them.

It’s estimated that in the United States both business and consumers combined receive more than 100 billion unwanted calls EVERY year (half of which probably come to my phone). And get this; that doesn’t even include the over 30 billion telemarketer calls. There are even prediction models that estimate 50% of the calls we will get this coming year will be of a fraudulent nature.

For most of us this usually means that we’ve lost maybe a few minutes here and there, as we swipe those calls into non-existence. However, that is not the case for everyone. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) reports consumer losses that almost reached a mind boggling $1.5 Billion in 2018.

While the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has pretty large teeth in the way of fines for residents of our great nation. When it comes to international robocallers, the FCC really has very little to no recourse.

Is The Number Legit?

It doesn’t look like scam calls are likely to stop any time soon, however, you can do quite a bit to protect yourself. Lets go over a few.

• Social Media

  Most of the time legitimate businesses list their phone numbers on their social media pages. Along with their number they will often list their website as well. These things can be used to determine of you feel a business looks legitimate.

• Search Engines

  It’s probably most of our first go-to. Throw the phone number right into your favorite search engine and see what you get. You might not see a business listed, and instead see a bunch of red flags. Often you’ll find many complaint listings pop up for certain phone numbers as top search results. Check it out!

• Reverse Phone Lookup

  There simply isn’t a better and more thorough option that using a solid reverse phone lookup tool like the one on Check People. The service works for both cell phones and landlines and crawls the internet seeking information related to the number you provide. Their proprietary algorithm will search for social media accounts, current websites, forum posts, blogs, current and previous images/videos and other various content that we’ll find on the deep web. Many people don’t realize what accounts are linked to their cell phone number.

Scammers and the like are not going anywhere any time soon. Believe it or not, I wrote about similar tactics almost 20 years ago for another publication. We haven’t come very far folks and you don’t want to find yourself an unwitting victim of a phone scam. Do what you can to protect yourself and check this space in 20 years for another update from yours truly!

The post Is That Number Calling You Legit? appeared first on CheckPeople Blog.