Virtual pc doctor scam

lock07

Spank wrote: »

Did they send you an anti virus program? according to there website http://www.virtualpcdoctor.com/session1.php you signed up for 3 years (or 1 year on 3 PC's).

Even if not for £100 you should get support for at least a year

Yes, I did sign up for 3 years support. When I tried to cancel I was told that I would only receive a partial refund and that they would keep me as a customer for a year. As if I would ring them for support after all this!

lock07

Can't believe it - 3 months on from being ripped off by these people and they phoned me twice today about 20 minutes apart. As soon as I realised who they were I put the phone face down on the dining room table and walked away. When I went back 5 minutes later they had hung up but it didn't stop them trying again.

[Deleted User]

RussJK wrote: »

No it's a scam - £180 is an insane amount of money! I bet there are techies here who'd love to be making that from each job, virus removal and PC optimisation are soft, easy jobs. If people were offering that for me to fix their computer then I'd quit my own profession, and just clean virses and fix computers.

Did they claim to be from Microsoft? They aren't, so they lied. Did they say they knew you had viruses & errors? etc Another lie, they couldn't know. Did they get you to look at eventviewer? Typical script that scammers follow.

Obviously it's up to you. Getting £100 back is better than none. If they are a UK based company, then they are scared about complaints about cold calls and misrespresenting services.

I'd pay you, RussJK - you fixed my computer via this forum and I've never looked back. Thanks again+++++

Fujiko

I've just spent a hilarious five minutes with an Indian gentleman with a suspiciously English name, who told me he was calling from Virtual PC Doctor, so I asked him where they were based. "United Kingdom" he said, so I asked where in the UK and was given the address 27 North Avenue, Westminster but what really confused him was being asked for the post-code although he was very anxious to give me their phone number. When I insisted that what I wanted was the post-code and after a few seconds delay (consulting with a colleague?) he said WN1 4BJ. I have checked with Royal Mail and, surprise surprise, this does not exist! I got the usual spiel about my anti-virus protection being ineffective for the problems he said I had, and in the end I told him - politely! - to get lost!
The moral of this story is simple - these people are crooks, don't let them anywhere near your computer. But what really worries me is the people, more trusting than me, who are likely to be taken in.

RussJK

Don't believe anyone calling about computer problems, unless they are returning a call you've made regarding a computer problem.

robmar0se

These con merchants are proliferating (or using different names for the same thing) - One of my clients was called by Virtual PC Care, claiming to represent Microsoft, and charged my silly client £113 for three programs that are free if you are in the know - CCleaner, ATF Cleaner (only works on XP - Client was Vista), and Auslogic Defrag. Clients allowed these scammers to login via logmein.

Virtual PC Doctor = Virtual PC Care ?

Lakeuk

I was on the phone (intentionally) to one of these scammers for 45mins, I recorded the end of the conversation and wrote a post about (link below).

Also I restored someones laptop who followed the scam instructions, luckily they saw something wasn't right when half way through giving the scammer their credit card number and got the bank to change their details, but the damage had been done to the laptop by that point.

Cold Phone Call Scam

lock07

I have just had a phone call from Jason (!) at Virtual PC Doctor. He said that they had a record of an IP address trying to access my computer. They said that even though they have attempted to block this, they have a record of the IP address trying to access this again and that they need to urgently do some work on my computer. I put the phone face down on the table and walked away and 10 minutes later he had gone.

davester

thats cause your on a suckers list hence all the phone calls

robmar0se

davester wrote: »

thats cause your on a suckers list hence all the phone calls

You're not going to win any prizes for your charm!!

In fact I am not sure that you're right...

As an PC engineer, I see many of these, in fact I have been on site when the client has been called.

I myself have been called (and on principle we don't do anything with cold callers)..

Another story, my sister-in-law was called, she's a canny old sole, she listened to their speech about her PC being targeted, she then asked a very simple question, "hows that? I don't have the internet here."

They put the phone down PDQ.