Technical Support Scam

A technical support scam, also called a tech support scam, is a scam in which a scammer claims to offer a legitimate technical support service for computing devices connected to the internet. It may begin with a cold telephone call from the scammer to the victim, or the victim may contact the scammer after encountering a fake pop-up resembling an error message or a fake help line advertised on a website the scammers operate. Scammers use social engineering and confidence tricks to convince the victim that their device has a problem, such as a malware infection, when none exists, frequently taking full control of the victim's computer with remote access software before persuading the victim to pay to fix the fictitious problem, typically through gift cards or cryptocurrency because both are hard to trace and carry few consumer protections; some scammers push further, persuading victims to transfer large sums to a supposed safe account to protect it from hackers, producing much larger losses. Technical support scams date back to at least 2008; a 2017 study found that 85 percent of the traceable IP addresses involved were located in India, 7 percent in the United States and 3 percent in Costa Rica, and Norton named the scam the top phishing threat to consumers in October 2021, the same year Microsoft found that 60 percent of surveyed consumers had been exposed to one within the previous twelve months.