Scammers

Richard from SE AZ · Nov 3, 2014

About 6 mo ago our computer got locked out by a phony FBI site. It claimed that we had visited prohibited sites and all we had to do was send $200.00 by wire transfer to a certain address and the FBI would accept the fine amount and unlock our computer. It totally freezes the puter and you can do absolutely nothing on it. My wife found our how to unlock it. Yesterday ,same thing, but this time it was a phony INTERPOL site. Again my wife cleared our computer, BUT, when you clear the computer it takes EVERYTHING off. And I mean ALL files. Taxes, pictures. etc. etc. Good thing we have everything on discs and I save all my camera SD cards. Those people must be making a mint from those they scare.

MarkB_MI · Nov 4, 2014

No doubt the Russian crime syndicates are doing well with their various malware scams. But so is Microsoft: You're paying them good money for an operating system which is full of holes. They cleared something like 20 billion last year, yet it seems they can't (won't) fix their core product.

You don't have to continue this insanity.
A hundred better choices than Windows

casenut1 · Nov 4, 2014

Had the same thing once. Got rid of it and lost nothing. All I did was go to start menu and did a restart. No problems.

Leroy · Nov 4, 2014

You say better chioces than Windows, WHERE? No computor place around knows anythin about anything else. That is ALL that is avaible.

MarkB_MI · Nov 4, 2014

Download an live CD of one of the popular distributions (e.g. Mint/Unbuntu/Fedora/SuSE) and load it up. If you're regular here, you're no doubt a do-it-yourselfer. Why pay someone who apparently knows nothing about information technology to do a poor job of administering your PC?

Steve@Advance · Nov 4, 2014

I've got those before, some are nastier than others. Never had to send them money, always been able to do system restore and back out of it.

I've been told sometimes you can get away from it by doing nothing but unplug the computer/take out the battery, as in not hit the X, just remove power asap.

Dick2 · Nov 4, 2014

We do not have ANYTHING financial on our computer. They might look, but it's not there!

BUTCH IN NY · Nov 4, 2014

Anytime one of those scams came to me, I had good luck just doing a Control, Alternate, and Delete. I was right back on.

RayP(MI) · Nov 4, 2014

I've had that FBI thing happen several times. Am using a laptop with no battery. When that happens I immediately pull power cord. Of course, computer goes down immediately. I loose any thing I am immediately working on, but rebooting from a cold dead start solves the problem. No files have been lost. If your browser wants to open sites you were viewing DON'T. Reopen them by typing in address.

Scammers

Richard from SE AZ

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MarkB_MI

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casenut1

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Leroy

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MarkB_MI

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Steve@Advance

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Dick2

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BUTCH IN NY

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RayP(MI)

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