Possible scam? UK IT Tech Ltd?

Willfoy

I've just returned home from work to discover my mum has agreed to pay £350 to this company following her being locked out of Outlook multiple times.

The upshot is this company has agreed to support her 'for life' if she ever gets locked out again. (She paid 160 ish last year for the same problem to a different company)

They accessed her tablet remotely and fixed the issue so have technically done the job.

Now we're worried they've done a load of stuff in the background too and ripped her off big time!

She apparently got their details from Microsoft, but I can't see it!?
Help!

tonyh66

oh dear she seems to have been scammed twice

bengalknights

Most likely had a virus that was linked to them and got scammed probably was same people last year

Willfoy

So she hasn't paid them but theyve sent an invoice... so we won't pay... but i guess they can cause all manner of issues with her tablet??

Where do we stand legally?

System

Willfoy wrote: »

So she hasn't paid them but theyve sent an invoice... so we won't pay... but i guess they can cause all manner of issues with her tablet??

Where do we stand legally?

If they're a legitimate company and she doesn't pay then they'll follow up and pursue her for the money, sending a reminder by mail and a notice demanding payment by mail and you pay the bill or they could take it to court. If they're not a legitimate company and she doesn't pay then they will most likely not contact her again other than to send a speculative email asking for payment.

She needs to change the password to her Microsoft account, she needs to enable two factor authentication so she gets sent a verification code by text to her phone which she will need to enter if she forgets her password.

Chino

tonyh66 wrote: »

oh dear she seems to have been scammed twice

Actually this time it appears to be the OP's mother doing the scamming. She contacted a company and contracted it to supply a service. The company supplied the service and submitted an invoice for its work but the OP's mother refuses to pay.

ChuckMountain

Willfoy wrote: »

I've just returned home from work to discover my mum has agreed to pay £350 to this company following her being locked out of Outlook multiple times.

The upshot is this company has agreed to support her 'for life' if she ever gets locked out again. (She paid 160 ish last year for the same problem to a different company)

They accessed her tablet remotely and fixed the issue so have technically done the job.

Now we're worried they've done a load of stuff in the background too and ripped her off big time!

She apparently got their details from Microsoft, but I can't see it!?
Help!

Sounds like a typical scam unfortunately.

Out of interest when she said she got the details from Microsoft was this Microsoft Internet Explorer or Edge via a Google search? I have known people to say that in this case.

So if it is "UK IT TECH LIMITED" this is actually a registered company with two company directors who set it up in Feb 2017. Both directors are around 70 years old, have Indian sounding names and it does not appear to have a VAT number.

The business address is a semi-detached residential property.

What does the Invoice say? Does it mention VAT out of interest?

If they are legitimate and charging that amount of money they should be VAT registered.

Looking at the website associated with, it has various spellings and grammatical issues. It's credit card graphic also includes some US specific ones that we don't generally use in the UK. The domain is registered by Domains by Proxy which effectively anonymises the data. The website itself is hosted in India.

What does appear to be happening these days is that "local" companies are set up in countries to facilitate credit card and other payment transactions on behalf of the Indian scam calling centres. Banks would query transactions if they were made to an Indian company but less likely to do to a UK one.

The charges themselves are ridiculously high for a simple fix and it would be worth mentioning to your local trading standards.

How are they asking for payment?

debitcardmayhem

Chino wrote: »

Actually this time it appears to be the OP's mother doing the scamming. She contacted a company and contracted it to supply a service. The company supplied the service and submitted an invoice for its work but the OP's mother refuses to pay.

Get a life, why would anyone agree £350 for a "service" to unlock an outlook email address for a tablet ? Seems to me that the lady found a number on google called them was sucked in.
Willfoy reset the tablet and set up 2fA on her outlook account and reset the passwords on any of her other accounts

J_B

ChuckMountain wrote: »

If they are legitimate and charging that amount of money they should be VAT registered.

That's not strictly true - you don't have to register for vat unless your annual turnover is above £85K

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-maintain-thresholds-for-2-years-from-1-april-2018/vat-maintain-thresholds-for-2-years-from-1-april-2018

Debbie_Savard

>Help!<

Time to talk about you taking financial power of attorney for your mother

ChuckMountain

J_B wrote: »

That's not strictly true - you don't have to register for vat unless your annual turnover is above £85K

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-maintain-thresholds-for-2-years-from-1-april-2018/vat-maintain-thresholds-for-2-years-from-1-april-2018

Sorry I should have been clearer, was assuming they were clearing the VAT threshold of £85k as they would be doing at least one of these per working day.

Unfortunately according to some the average "sales" person on the scam are doing 5 - 6.

So in reality they probably should have a VAT registration, which is again possibly points to a scam and certainly if the are doing over £85k and defrauding the tax man.

To the OP does the invoice state vat and does it have a VAT number (legal requirement) if so you can check to see if it is the same company or not.