75 Yr old father possibly scammed, help please!

[Scania]

As the title, my 75 year old father has informed me in passing that he's recently been contacted by a guy from www.livefixpc.com claiming the usual, problems with his machine etc etc

I'm yet to get over to him to find out exactly what's gone on or what's been installed on the PC, from what he tells me, it sounds , at best, like he's been coerced into signing up for some PC maintenance contract, at worse, I fear they've had some remote session open with him and now most likely have access to his passwords, banking etc.

A quick google search of the url doesn't seem to have brought up too much in the way of warnings of wrong doing, but I'm still concerned.

I've told him to change his passwords etc as a matter of urgency but doubt he'll do so, I'll be doing that tomorrow regardless for him!

I'm also thinking of a complete re-install of his Windows 8.1 and yet another talking to him about speaking to me prior to acting on anything a cold caller tells him is supposedly wrong with his PC!

Anything else I should consider? Or, is this website / caller actually to be trusted albeit unscrupulous (which I highly doubt!)

Any pointers appreciated, thanks.

 

[Scania]

Not looking very good, I'll be sorting his system tomorrow, fingers crossed he's secure!

Thanks guys.

 

[Scania]

I've done some digging on Google and tbh very little came back with regard to this particular URL bar one comment from somebody stating that it is indeed a scam (as per my fear) and that they use payment details to access accounts, my father assures me he's given no payment details (card numbers etc) yet thinks he's now in a contract - which I assume has been paid for by some means, it's certainly looking iffy,I'll know more later.

His bank were pretty crap tbh, they basically turned the onus back on him saying if he started fraud investigations, he could end up being sued!

Understandably from his point of view, he's concerned now that he's slandering a legit organisation!
My view is we're this the case, a bonafide organisation would be understanding (never mind not having cold called him in the first place!) and they would have no issue.

I'll be over there tomorrow and will first disconnect its LAN cable (it's not wireless connected) and will search around to see if anything obvious is now installed, I'm thinking more along the lines of a reinstall and force him to change everything and promise not to entertain any further contact from either these guys or anybody in a similar vein.

Can anybody give me some pointers to likely processes / applications that I could expect to find?
I've previously disabled windows remote on his PC but he did say they had "done something remotely to his PC from their end" which worrys me greatly!

I'm hoping, given he's already contacted his bank, albeit with their useless response,any subsequent fraudulent activity should tally with this event and they will be helpful or understanding of his predicament....

I'll update further later today.
Thanks again.

 

[Scania]

double post

 

[Scania]

I would look at turning off uPnP on his router as this may make it more difficult for them to remotely connect to his PC should it happen again in future. If uPnP is on, and it probably is by default, then everything inside the network is considered trusted and can request that ports are forwarded and opened.

Cheers, anything that'll make it harder for them is worth a try, I'm heading over to him shortly and should have a better idea as to what's gone on fully.

Thanks again all.

 

[Scania]

Update, turns out that he's paid for a "service contract" from these jokers,approx £140 but in Swiss currency (franks?), I've instructed him to contact his bank as its been obtained under duress (he was bombarded with calls until he succumbed) and suspected to be fraudulent, which he's done, the bank are going to cancel the credit card that he used and hopefully refund the money.
He has no PayPal account thankfully....
His PC is now reformatted and Win 8 reinstalled, passwords all changed and hopefully he won't fall victim again, apparently he's already had another similar call from a company with a slightly different name claiming the same PC issues!

Hopefully , caught in time, his bank see no issue with his card or accounts but are now monitoring his account for any subsequent issues.
Fingers crossed!!

 

[Scania]

Indeed, I've explained to him that he's now most likely to be on a "sucker list" - as the subsequent call seems to confirm - he's had a good talking to by me, and my mum won't let him forget it either!

Lesson learned I very much hope.

 

[Scania]

I'll be seeing him again later in the week and will explore blocking options - he has some Panasonic phone too iirc - yes, this time the bank were much more helpful (bank holiday staff yesterday maybe didn't care!) my only issue now is reinstalling his 8.1 seems to have altered how its interface works, options he could previously see in the email client are now not visible, his printer seems to be queuing everything without printing and the OS seems to periodically freeze for a few minutes at a time for no apparent reason,but then seems to carry on just fine after the freeze without issue (which I recall it doing initially when I first installed it as a replacement for XP last year) the problem I have is he assumes I have an answer for all these issues but alas I have Win7 64bit which has none of nor replicates any of these problems!

Pensioners and PC's are a baaaad mix!


Yet again, many thanks to all.

 

[Scania]

Is there any real big reason to be using windows?
If he really is that vulnerable and doesn't know much about computers, it might be best moving him to Linux. At least the scammers won't physically be able to do any thing to his machine if it was to happen again.

To be fair to him, he's managed just fine with XP and 8.1 for years, if anything, he's called me hardly at all over any issues with 8.1, this scam was new to him and he fell for it, I think he will be far more suspicious of anything else in the future.

Not to mention I have no experience of Linux and also his grandchildren play z few direct x games on his PC when they visit which I doubt would work were he to change OS.

Thanks, but I think I'll pass.


Blocking international calls isn't very viable, we have extended family in the U.S.....