A friend is being scammed, advice wanted please

System

Sicard wrote: »

Why can't he reset the pc to factory settings? This would format and reload the operating system thus wiping out any nasties.

Except MBR ones...

https://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2015/12/nemesis-malware-hijacks-pcs-boot-process-to-gain-stealth-persistence/

welshyyyyy_2

Tarambor wrote: »

Yeah, lots of people like you say that. Its an hour if you're doing it for personal, lucky and you don't give a toss about losing data. When you're doing it as a business it is an entirely different story and a quick run through of AVG and CCleaner quite simply doesn't cut it because you have to be absolutely sure as possible that its completely clear and that usually involves not just sorting out the issue with the virus but any other OS issues and issues with the hardware such as a blocked CPU heatsink as well to be sure its not malware causing the problem. When you get the inevitable "all my babas photos are on there and they're irreplaceable" and the reply to "do you have a back up" is inevitably no then you can spend more than an hour just retrieving the stuff and sticking it on a removable drive/DVD.

As to the "I'd have done it for £25", all I can say is I've sorted out plenty of messes left by people who are in that club. I would do it for £25 but all that'll get you is the hard drive wiped by zeroing it and the OS reinstalled and I won't even bother about backing up your data so consider it lost if you haven't backed it up yourself. You want more than that and you're paying by the hour because this is the kind of job that has a tendency to take a long time with some of the stuff out today.

and you think this justifies a £600 bill !?? Sounds like you're one of these people that charges this type of money to take advantage of people that don't know any better

welshyyyyy_2

Update is that my mate spoke to Toshiba today to complain about this and they put him straight through to this company so they are obviously a Toshiba partner! What ensued was a further conversation which the outcome was that the company ripped up the invoice (figuratively not literally as I'm sure there never was actually one) but not before the "analyst" rang my mates father to accuse him of losing his job. Nice people.

EdwardB

Sounds like the fake IT companies that pretend to fix your computer after saying you have a virus. They get you to do remote access, then they put backdoors and all sorts on your laptop.

Toshiba has pulled out of Laptop market so they may well have formed dubious partner, if it was indeed really Toshiba he called.

Public information says that company was formed just a few days ago by one


Prabhudas RUPARELIA

Registered office is this residential address

https://goo.gl/maps/pLM5UXj6ozr



Name & Registered Office:
UK IT TECH LIMITED
83 ELMSLEIGH AVENUE
KENTON
UNITED KINGDOM
HA3 8HY
Company No. 10594587


Status: Active
Date of Incorporation: 01/02/2017

NiftyDigits

welshyyyyy wrote: »

Update is that my mate spoke to Toshiba today to complain about this and they put him straight through to this company so they are obviously a Toshiba partner! What ensued was a further conversation which the outcome was that the company ripped up the invoice (figuratively not literally as I'm sure there never was actually one) but not before the "analyst" rang my mates father to accuse him of losing his job. Nice people.

Perhaps your mate isn't calling Toshiba in the first place.

I doubt that he is calling this number; 01932 84 1600 but rather a Freephone number that he found on the Internet.
There is no way that anyone at Toshiba could put him through to an Indian scam artist.

EdwardB

NiftyDigits wrote: »

Perhaps your mate isn't calling Toshiba in the first place.

I doubt that he is calling this number; 01932 84 1600 but rather a Freephone number that he found on the Internet.
There is no way that anyone at Toshiba could put him through to an Indian scam artist.

I agree that it is unlikely that it is Toshiba, there are loads of IT companies that pretend to be Microsoft and other vendors.

AndyPix

Tarambor wrote: »

Yeah, lots of people like you say that. Its an hour if you're doing it for personal, lucky and you don't give a toss about losing data. When you're doing it as a business it is an entirely different story and a quick run through of AVG and CCleaner quite simply doesn't cut it because you have to be absolutely sure as possible that its completely clear and that usually involves not just sorting out the issue with the virus but any other OS issues and issues with the hardware such as a blocked CPU heatsink as well to be sure its not malware causing the problem. When you get the inevitable "all my babas photos are on there and they're irreplaceable" and the reply to "do you have a back up" is inevitably no then you can spend more than an hour just retrieving the stuff and sticking it on a removable drive/DVD..

You must just be very bad at it.
It takes around what, 5 mins to boot from a linux live usb and copy the users profile to a usbhdd
Windows installed in around 15-20 minutes, office around 10 minutes, blast an air duster through the vents

Tarambor wrote: »

As to the "I'd have done it for £25", all I can say is I've sorted out plenty of messes left by people who are in that club. I would do it for £25 but all that'll get you is the hard drive wiped by zeroing it and the OS reinstalled and I won't even bother about backing up your data so consider it lost if you haven't backed it up yourself. You want more than that and you're paying by the hour because this is the kind of job that has a tendency to take a long time with some of the stuff out today.

Rubbish.


If i were a business doing this for a living then i would naturally charge more than £25 squid but i have a real job and just do these as a little income boost to spend on my daughter.


Its an hours work, if it takes you longer thats down to you

Willfoy

Sorry to bump this up, but my mum's just been stung for 360 quid after she was locked out of her outlook account...

Did this get resolved?