For some reason, people have come to believe in the mythical computer that never crashes, never catches a virus, and never has any issues. Folks, it’s a lie! Update your operating system! (Mac OS or Windows) Be careful of the websites that you download from! And, by all means, back up your data! Get an inexpensive external drive and back up your stuff. This past week I witnessed a most unfortunate incident whereby a Power Mac G5 user lost everything when a Seagate 320GB hard drive crashed. The hard drive inside the mythical Mac is the same hard drive inside an old Dell PC. The individual had no back up and the data was not recoverable due to a severe head crash. Don’t believe in the myth, protect yourself! It doesn’t take much time and can save you hours and hundreds of dollars in trying to recover your priceless data.
Posts Tagged ‘Mooresville’
The Mac myth is alive and well!
Monday, August 22nd, 2011Mooresville Computer Shoppers Beware!
Saturday, March 5th, 2011It has come to my attention that a local retail store sold one of my clients a new laptop, only to discover it has issues. Shortly after the purchase, my client witnessed the “Blue Screen of Death” on his NEW laptop.
He contacted me to investigate the issue and I discovered an interesting fact. The HP laptop is NOT new, it is a refurbished model that still had the same issue the previous owner returned it for!!! In other words, he thought he was purchasing a new HP laptop, but I revealed it was a used, returned and unrepaired computer.
Further investigation revealed that the sales person had trouble registering the machine with HP, so he took it to the back room and returned announcing to my friend that “It’s ready to go!”
I am withholding the name of the retail store until my friend reports back to me, if they step up and accept responsibility, they will remain anonymous. If the store is uncooperative, it will be reported on this blog and numerous others.
Mooresville Computer Shoppers Beware, make sure you know what you’re buying before you hand the clerk your credit card.
Tim Grier
www.CETofNC.com
Beware of PC Repair Telephone Scam!
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011A fellow PC technician, Brian, who has been working with me for about a year, called me earlier this evening. He had received a phone call from an individual identifying himself as Logan Harris from a company called Fix My Computer. Logan, who had a heavy middle-eastern accent, told Brian that Microsoft had forwarded information to Fix My Computer indicating that his PC was downloading viruses and that he was calling to help Brian get rid of the infections. Logan advised Brian to go to www.ammyy.com to download and install remote support software so he could take control of Brian’s computer to resolve the infection problems. Don’t do this! This is a scam!
Brian said that he wanted to find out what these guys were up to so he played along using an old Windows 98 machine. He said that basically, they have a five step approach.
First, they’ll ask you to navigate to a website that will either show that a clean computer is infected or will actually infect it, free of charge.
Secondly, using smoke and mirrors, they’ll show you ordinary error messages from Windows Event Viewer and say that these confirm the infections.
Then, they’ll ask for remote access of your PC; if you grant them the access, they’ll show you more smoke and mirrors with indications of horrible infections on your computer.
Now, they’ll ask for a credit card so one of their “Microsoft Trained Technicians” can fix the problems. Brian ended the call at this point and let me know what they were doing.
Fifth, and lastly, they will most likely max out the credit card that you give them and, in 24 hours, your card will be universally declined and you will be left with the bills.
Brian said that he had checked out the scam online and found several indications of it as an emerging problem. My own investigations indicate that this scam has been a big problem in Europe lately and may be emerging here in the US.
Brian also said that he found another organization called Iyogi that appears to be a “sister” company of Fix My Computer; both are located in India. These people pretend to represent other real companies such as Norton, McAfee, Dell, and HP. Their tactics are virtually identical to those indicated above.
Be careful and don’t fall for these scams.