online pc care scam or not ?

[pcclan]

i have be wondering if online pc care is a scam and if so what type of virus do they leave on the computer? from what i been reading they leave a boot virus and well i i think they are a scam cause they told her that they got her information from Microsoft ?

[nevermind1534]

Definitely fake, then

[mDust]

Regardless of what these types of software call themselves or whether or not they infect your computer with a virus, they are all a scam. They do not do anything special and often there are free tools that do a better job at whatever it is they claim to do. This is doubly so of any advertisement that says 'free scan!!!' and wants you to install their software. Once you download and run the scan you have to pay to actually fix whatever the scan 'found' (usually made up errors and techno-babble). I've seen cases where the installed software was incredibly difficult to remove and constantly interrupted normal computer use with pop-ups and other annoyances until the user paid up...or reformatted the drive. These people prey on the technologically unsophisticated among us and probably make a hefty profit in exchange for doing practically nothing for the customer.

It's borderline-legal robbery.

[x88x]

i have be wondering if online pc care is a scam
Yes.


they got her information from Microsoft ?
No.


My basic rules of thumb for these:
If an advertisement ever says you have a specific problem, or a specific number of problems, or may have a specific problem, etc, etc, best-case it's trying to get you to buy their software; worst case it's malware (spyware, virus, botnet installer, rootkit, etc). Just remember that there is literally no way that a browser pop-up can know detailed information like that about your computer. Therefore, if they are claiming to know that information, they are lying.

If a company ever claims that they got your information from a specific source, they are lying. There are very rare instances where this is not the case (collection agencies, etc), but they're not going to contact you through a pop-up ad. Besides, Microsoft doesn't even collect information like that in the first place.

As for what exactly the program that the person in question installed did to their computer, that depends on the specific scam. I would recommend doing a full sweep of the system with (in this order):
1) Spyware scanner
2) Virus scanner
3) CCleaner (or similar)

[pcclan]

you want to hear the stupid thing is that they phoned here

[mDust]

you want to hear the stupid thing is that they phoned here

No legit company would do that. If you have it on your computer, remove all traces of it. Immediately.

[Stranger]

Well, my opinion is always doing anything with online stuffs is not good. It means when you doing some online scanning operation or other, sometimes they can read our personal files on PC without knowing us. So this is not a good idea.