Scam Alert - The bad guys almost got me. On black Friday I purchased a Windows 8 computer. Downloaded 30 day trial of AVG antivirus. Trail version of AVG worked well. Yesterday morning after receiving almost daily pop up reminders, I purchased online a two year license for AVG. Downloaded the new license key, saved copy of online invoice, installed new license, and everything works great.
Later yesterday afternoon, while connected to a client's system via terminal server, I receive a phone call from ""Global somebody or other"" - a tech person with a strong foreign accent, talking real fast and telling me my computer is sending error messages to a Microsoft email server. He said there is something very wrong with my computer. He then had me open Windows Event Viewer and he showed me that Event Viewer had sent 50,000+ error messages to Microsoft. He said if I followed his instructions he would fix everything. I told him I was in the middle of a project, but he said that ""what he was going to do would not interrupt any other programs"". He then asked me to go to remote access tool teamviewer.com. The bells went off in my head! This guy, who I didn't call, and I wasn't sure who he worked for, wanted remote access to my new computer!
I asked for a call back number and a case number, because I was not going to jeopardize my remote session to my client. He could not provide me with a call back number or a case number and said he will call me later. I then pulled up the online invoice from my AVG purchase. The invoice showed that I purchased AVG from their authorized reseller office in Cyprus. I believe my copy of AVG is legit software and it works well. However, my contact information was compromised and the bad guys came a calling.
Folks, let's be careful out there!