Malware Beware! (continued)

You’re sitting through the meeting and it’s only then that doubts begin to creep in. You’ve heard about these various computer scams and the consequences. How do you really know that the message was from Microsoft? How do you know you were speaking to a Microsoft engineer? How do you know who Jay is? And anyway, why didn’t your normal virus protection software catch the malware? Why didn’t you think of this before?! So you mention it to one of your colleagues after the meeting. He’s suspicious straight away. He asks if you’ve recently clicked on any links on websites or in emails you’ve received. You think it over carefully. You’ve been really busy recently, looking at lots of websites, as you’re in the process of updating your own website. But no, you haven’t clicked on any links. So what has been happening that’s out of the ordinary? As you rack your brains, it gradually dawns on you that you’ve been dealing with someone recently who’s been developing your website, making it mobile-friendly. He has access to your website and has been setting up examples so you can check them out before they are finalised. He was recommended by a trusted colleague, but could this be the source, even inadvertently, of the problem? Well, there’s nothing you can do about what’s already happened, you decide. You’ll just have to think about what you’re going to do going forward about your website development. That’s a problem for another day. But that all too familiar feeing of panic wells up again. In fact by now you have a huge knot in the pit of your stomach. What have you done, leaving “Jay” with open access to your laptop for most of the day? You don’t remember the drive back to the office, but suddenly you’re opening the office door and making a bee-line for the laptop. You can hardly bear to look. Aah – the internet connection has dropped again, thank heaven! Maybe, just maybe, it went off before “Jay” did his worst. You’re beginning to breathe again when the phone rings. It’s the 020 number gain, “Jay”. He tells you he’s fixed everything and gives you a number to key in to a window that will appear the next time you switch on the laptop. You decide you’ve had enough for the day and go home from the office, not knowing whether to be relieved or terrified. You don’t switch on the laptop the next day. Or the next. In fact you’re afraid to switch it on ever again. You cannot go through another day like that. What are you going to do? It was at this stage that our client called us. Our technical team spotted straight away that this was indeed a scam. The laptop was delivered to us and the malware removed. No malicious damage appeared to have been done. Our client was then left with the challenge of reclaiming the £199. He remembered that there is a fourteen day cooling off period for any insurance policy which is bought and called the 020 number to explain that he’d changed his mind and no longer wanted the three-year policy. The person who answered the phone (as Microsoft Technical Support) – and who sounded just like “Jay” advised that he’d have to pass this on to the accounts dept. There were some clicks and then someone (sounding suspiciously similar) in the so-called accounts dept explained that some work had been done and the most that could be refunded was £149 – ie a cost to our client of £50. Our client agreed to this, just wanting to be rid of the whole issue. He also went to Paypal and explained that he’d been the victim of a fraud. Paypal explained that he had 21 days to resolve the complaint, after which the matter would be escalated. During that time he had a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing with the fraudster who tried a variety of ruses and excuses to avoid repaying the agreed-upon £149, including some far-fetched story about not being able to refund the VAT element! Finally after over a month, our client did indeed receive a repayment of £149. So, the moral of this story is that although we all know about these frauds taking place, it is very, very easy to be caught out. The cost to this client was small in the scheme of things. It could have been so much worse. Be vigilant, and if in doubt, shout!