The shady world of AV

I agree that the people discussed in the article are scumbags, but honestly, they're not A/V vendors. (Hence the title of the post if a bit misleading.)

While I'm not a huge fan of real A/V vendors, real and reputable A/V vendors don't pop up random web pages meant to look like legit warning messages, just to get someone to call and spend money to "fix" problems that don't exist. These people are just scammers, pretending to be A/V vendors.
 
Am I the only one who see this and thinks "natural selection" ?

I know next to nothing about plumbing, but if a plumber knocked on my door and said pipes in my area were in danger of bursting and flooding homes, but he'd gladly fix it for 300$ I'd probably think he was full of shit, but even if I kind of believed him I'd get a 2nd or 3rd opinion from researched and trusted plumbers.

If you know jack shit about computers don't cough up 300$ before making sure your problem is a real one. I'm sure a 15 second google search on the pop-up adware would not only reveal the scam but probably provide idiot proof steps on how to fix/remove it.

If your too stupid/lazy to research something - "A fool and his money are soon parted" I agree the companies are dishonest pieces of crap and good for the FTC for going after them, but I refuse to feel to badly for the people that paid out 300 so quickly.
 
Additionally, with the prevalence of IP Telephony and cheap VPN, this kind of thing is absolutely TRIVIAL for scammers to set up. They can tell them they're anyone, and have their phone info match up.

Remember, there's scammers like this, who're just out to bilk you out of your money.

Then there's the malicious assholes. The ones who want to bilk you out of your money and have zero qualms about nuking your system if you fail to comply.
 
I loved the internet back in the 90's, i normaly call it "when the internet was free of morons and scumbags"

News groups was the only way of discussion, and emails was always in UTF8, IRC was the way to communicate live.

God i miss it.
 
I loved the internet back in the 90's, i normaly call it "when the internet was free of morons and scumbags"

News groups was the only way of discussion, and emails was always in UTF8, IRC was the way to communicate live.

God i miss it.

What was that? I can't hear you behind all these popups.
 
I loved the internet back in the 90's, i normaly call it "when the internet was free of morons and scumbags"

News groups was the only way of discussion, and emails was always in UTF8, IRC was the way to communicate live.

God i miss it.

The 90's eh? When "The Internet" was AOL
Yes, no one ever got phished on AOL and all their users were careful and intelligent digital pioneers. Rofl.
 
The 90's eh? When "The Internet" was AOL
Yes, no one ever got phished on AOL and all their users were careful and intelligent digital pioneers. Rofl.

can't talk for the AOL users :) i lived in denmark, and had a dial back thought a university, never had problems with this and phishing
 
Pretty misleading title, the article talks about scammers not AV companies. Good read though.
 
Back
Top