Scam phone call, this time – Amazon

Today [ 2021-04-22 ]

Robo call telling me that $99.99 has been charged on my CC. directions are to call back the number in the Caller ID, or to call 769-572-3120 to pursue it with Amazon.

The number I have for Amazon is, well, I cannot find one.

Interesting as Amazon doesn’t want to talk with users thus giving these hackers an inroad to getting hacked.

Calling the number the hacker gave me, I hear “Amazon customer Support, can I help you?”. the guy has an east Indian accent and asks for my email address. I close the connection now but this hack is pretty smooth…

Stay safe,
Bill

[ previously ]
These guys are pretty good in their scam.

First I get a call with a robot message that my amazon account is renewing and they need to help me with it in case I want to cancel. Then, after hitting 1, a guy with a heavy eastern accent, maybe India, reaffirms that my Amazon account is renewing and if do I want to renew they will help me cancel. This first guy wants me to get in front of my computer or cell phone. I tell him I am at my computer. and I would like to renew.

Then he asks, is it on. Yes, it is on.

He says Ok, let me give you to a supervisor to “help” with the renewal.

The next guy confirms that I am at my computer and it is on (???) and tells me to open Chrome and to go to this website:

www.amazoncare2.weebly.com

Weebly.com is a hosting company and these guys have setup a complete hacking scenario with their own software. They have created a subdomain, amazoncare2 at the weebly.com domain hosting service.

Once there they try to get me to let them into my computer. I terminated the conversation at this time.

If you would like to discuss this further click on the “Leave a comment” link below and we can discuss more about these scams.

Hope this helps you be aware and stay safe!
Bill

Another Outlook problem, Office 365 Outlook

Today a client could not open his email using Outlook 365.

Looking at the task manager I saw several outlook entries. Going back to the desktop, double clicking on the Outlook icon. it trys to start and then fails to run.

Selecting each Outlook instance in the task manager process list and then clicking the End Task button on each. Then restarting Outlook, it works.

Something failed and left some processes running that disallowed Outlook from running. And clicking on the Outlook icon again did not run the program

Task Manager is a very powerful tool in every Windows computer. It can be a huge help.

Hoping you week is good,
Bill

Outlook change password process

This week I had 2 clients need to change their outlook password. Here are the steps for Office 365, but the steps are similar for previous versions…

In the home screen for outlook, usually looking at the view of your inbox
Click on File
Click on Account Settings
Click again on Account Settings in the drop down menu
Click on the email address you want to update (youremail@domain.com)
Click on Change
Then on this window look for the password – it will be hidden, represented with stars or dots
Highlight the stars, delete them and then enter the new password
Click Next
You may have to accept the certificate – do that
Then Click on Finish

Email should now flow into the Inbox as before.

Have a great week,
Bill

I cannot enter my password to open my computer

Recently I have seen this happen. You are at the login screen for your computer and when you type, the characters do not fill in the password or PIN box.

After working with this a while the solution is to reboot. After a reboot you should be able to login.

Apparently there is a quirk in Windows where this can occur.

And reboot, seems to be the primary fix for this and many other issues that may occur in Windows.

Hope this helps,
Happy March 2021!!!
Bill

Common Browser Hack

I wanted to cover this to help you avoid getting involved with the hacker.

Browser hacks can come from webpages you browse and from the ads that may appear with those pages. A browser hack essentially takes over your screen. Sometimes doing this with an audio announcement that you need to call the phone number on the screen. This hack is mostly huff-and-puff and you can easily recover from it.

If your screen gets taken over, try right-clicking in the bottom taskbar in an area where there are no icons. If you do this you may see a pop-up menu with a list of possible commands. Left clink on the Task Manager command.

Once Task manager is up look for the Processes tab and left click on it. In this list you will see the browser instance for the browser you were using when the hack occurred. Left click on that instance and then in the bottom right hand corner of task manager click on the End Task button. This usually ends the hack and returns you to control of your system.

After you regain control, I recommend you run a Malwarebytes scan. Malware bytes will find items that may have gone deeper into your system and list them at the end of the scan. When you get to the end, make sure all items found are selected and then Quarantine them all.

Once you have done this, run the scan again. Hopefully zero items will be found. If zero, reboot and scan one more time. If zero after the reboot, you have removed the hack and any other malware that may have been in your system.

Hope this helps you.

Marriott Rewards Scam

This phone call happens repeatedly every week. They Robo call with a voice saying “Thank you for choosing Marriott – press one to get your complementary stay.”

Sounds good right? And when they finally come on the line they pump you up with this trip and that trip like its all free. It is really enticing! Once you get to getting your “free” stay, you need to anti up $2000 or more to get it going. Apparently while on their paid part of the trip you can get your FREE complimentary stay at a Marriott hotel. It is smooth and slick. But this is so dishonest, I don’t believe a free stay will be included anywhere.

The Robo caller says press 1 to opt out. Nope, that never happens either and they just keep calling.

I think it must be successful because they KEEP calling over and over every week.

So, in my humble opinion, there is no such thing as a free lunch, or, a free stay at Marriott!

“Get even more out of Windows” notice and recommends from my friends at MASRA

MasraTech website: http://masratech.com/

This “feature” has been causing problems for a lot of our clients. We highly suggest you turn this off in Windows 10.

Turn On or Off “Get even more out of Windows” or “Let’s make Windows even better” Suggestions in Settings

1 Open Settings, and click/tap on the System icon.

2 Click/tap on Notifications & actions on the left side. (see screenshot below)

3 Check (on – default) or uncheck (off) Suggest ways I can finish setting up my device to get the most out of Windows for what you want under Notifications on the right side.

4 When finished, you can close Settings if you like.

More on the “why” of this:
When they restart their computer or log out and log back in it tries to force them into using a Microsoft account instead of a local account. Often times the computer even locks up and prevents any login

Amazon Hack

From a friend on FB today:

Heads up! I received an email from Amazon today asking me to verify my information, I contacted Amazon and they said they have not sent anything out so we have a new scam , if you get an email from Amazon asking you to update your information it is not from them.

From another friend on FB:

This happened to me yesterday. Be sure to read sender’s name at top of email. I also called Amazon customer service,. Unfortunately I called the toll free number on email first, As I spoke with that person I realized this was a scam and hung up. DO NOT call number on email, in fact delete immediately. ?

Cox Cable issues

Today I got a call from a long time client sharing that over the weekend her internet went down. She subscribes to Cox Cable in south Orange County and it was working fine, and then it wasn’t. She made no changes to wiring and did not touch the equipment, it just quit working.

She is pretty capable and worked with several Cox representatives over a period of 3 hours. Very frustrating because what was working stopped for no reason on her part.

At the end Cox told her that it is her problem and they cannot do any more for her.

When she called me, frustrations were high.

I know that over the years Cox has made upgrades where a cable modem upgrade may be required, so I researched it and found one that should work.

She is going to purchase it – more soon…

Another Scam, this time copied from the neighborhood blog – cox

Beware – most probably scam call. Just got a call from a lady claiming to be from Cox technical support. Her story (paraphrased here):

“the Cox server caused some services in my computer to stop and as a result, the fast internet service I am paying for is slower than it should be. Her assignment is to fix that for me, then transfer me to the Cox billing department who will issue some refund. What she asked me to do was to go to the www.TeamViewer.com website, and download the TeamViewer application. Following that, she would sent me a user name and code to enter”.

Needless to say I told her NFW. Being extremely familiar with computers, software, website, etc., I know TeamViewer is an application built for remote support whereby whoever you allow access to your computer can see everything and do anything. In legit hands it is a serious tool used by technical support organizations. In other hands it is insanity. I told her that I will do myself whatever she guides me to do over the phone [and sense at every step whether it makes sense or not]. This got her confused / stopped in her tracks and politely told me I know more than her and we should end the call. I agreed.

I then called Cox myself. They told me what I suspected: Cox never does this, they have no record of any Cox tech support call place to my number and this is most probably a scam.

This call came from (972) 725-6688.

You may experience similar calls claiming to come from your internet provider. Be careful.