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naples mac help

Don't be a victim

of a Cyber Scam!

T hese days, it is not uncommon to hear about a friend or family member being taken

advantage of every week or two as the internet bad guys get more crafty in their
methods of fooling the general population. I will tell you how to foil the three most
popular cyber scams happening today.

Scam One: The Phone call from Google Scam Three: The Phony Email

Your phone rings, and the person knows your name, “Hello Mr. Johnson, this is Michael Another common scam is a message in your
from Google/Microsoft/Apple calling, we noticed that you were having a problem with your mail inbox appearing to be from your bank, credit
computer?” card issuer, airline or any secure site that you may
This is the hook. At any given time, almost everyone is having some kind of computer use. The message may say something like this, and
issue: email password wrong, printer not responding, documents can’t be found and so on. has the appearance of one that is legitimate:
“What a relief,” you think, “help is on the way!” We need to confirm all your account
Wrong! These professionals prey on fear. They will suggest things that may be wrong information, You must confirm your account
with your system that they have “detected remotely”, and then they continue down that before we close it . Click the link below to confirm
path, eventually getting you to download a small program so that they “can get into your your account information using our secure server.
computer and fix this for you,” for a low fee from $100 to $750, conveniently charged to your To identify this email as a scam, hover over
credit card. In reality, they are installing programs that will cause more problems (and more the address that it appears to be from, in this case
charges) and even deleting files that they will later charge you to recover! Apple, and you will see the actual senders address
The most important thing to remember when you get a phone call like this is that no reveled:
one outside your home or office can see what is happening to your computer unless they As you can see, the address does not contain
are sitting at your desk! They claim to have access, and by following your lead they create a apple.com and does contain some unknown
problem to solve. If you get this type of call, hang up and do not answer repeated calls back, address, delete this message immediately! Do not
they will hound you for weeks! If you happen to have given these callers your credit card attempt to unsubscribe from these type messages,
number, call your bank or card issuer immediately and dispute the charge, they will issue you those are also attempts to harvest your personal
a new card as well. I have had clients that are very computer savvy fall for the phone call scam, data.
be careful that you don’t! Know that banks and other online accounts
do not send emails asking to to verify data unless
Scam Two: The website 1-800 number popup you have requested a password change or other

account change, these do not come out of the blue.
This is a common scam
Entities now have text message alerts or phone
that happens without
calls to verify activity on your accounts, they do not
warning and through no
send emails asking you to login!
fault of the user. A popular
By following these steps, you can avoid falling
web site is hacked for a
prey to these popular scams that target your online
number of minutes, and
activity. Remember that no one outside your
any visitor during that
home or office can see what is happening to your
time will be exposed to a
computer unless they are sitting at your desk! If
pop up ad that says “Your
you suspect your are being preyed upon by a cyber
computer is at risk! Call
stalker, call a family member
1-800-GET-HELP” so
or IT Professional
that we can solve your
immediately for help.
problem!” If you try to close this popup, it won’t close. If you restart your computer, it comes
back. It seems to have taken over your computer, and you are tempted to call. Don’t!
Here are sites that will tell you how to solve the popup scam:
For Mac Users: tinyurl.com/z9y3oqm
For PC Users: tinyurl.com/gpm78m3
Jeff Bohr | Naples Mac Help 239.595.0482 | jeff@jeffbohr.com