“This hurts. It hurts deep,” Kay Howard of Fairborn said.
She was using Facebook in September when all of a sudden her computer went haywire.
“It came on there and started just putting nasty words and cuss words and everything else, and ‘I hate you’ and a bunch of dirty words,” she said.
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Then a window popped up that said “Click for help.” So she did.
Howard said a man then took over her computer remotely. And claimed he would fix it for $500.
“He said he was there to help me,” Howard said.
She paid by credit card, and when her supposed helper was done, her computer was unusable.
“He tore the heck out of it. I couldn’t see a picture on it. I couldn’t see a word on it. I couldn’t type a word on it.
“I just started crying. It hurt me so bad,” she said.
Howard isn’t alone in being victimized.
Tech support scams rank fourth on the list of the top scams in the U.S., according to the Senate 2019 Fraud Book.
- To protect yourself, the Better Business Bureau advises to:
- Use pop-up blockers
- Keep antivirus protection up-to-date
- Don't allow remote access to your computer
Howard offers this advice if your computer starts acting strange: “Just turn your computer off as fast as you can because I don’t want to see no other poor person go through this.”
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Howard said her credit card company has told her she will be reimbursed, but so far it hasn’t happened.
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