Tech Support scams have existed for a very long time. It has only recently increased in popularity.
It all started out with phone calls from “Microsoft” employees. These were fake calls where thy would act as technical support for Microsoft and would tell you that if they couldn’t login to your PC to fix the issue that your were going to be in trouble. Either with the police or your ISP. Once they got into your computer they would begin installing random free programs or viruses and then tell you that you had to pay X amount. This worked a lot and it sadly still does.
Fast forward to now and we have so many more variations on this old scam. The most popular one normally starts off with a simple email or a file download from a website. Once you install it you will start getting virus warnings or in some cases you get locked out of your computer entirely. They pretty much all end out the same way, giving you a phone number to call and someone on the other end telling you to pay X amount for them to fix it. The strange part is most of the time the person on the other end doesn’t know they are doing anything wrong or simply need the work so badly that they are willing to do it.
The people behind these scams make off with millions. Don’t fall for them. Microsoft will never call you to fix your computer and if you are worried, look up a local computer store like us at Computer Mechanics and give them a call to talk about it.