Phone scam that can get into your computer!

Sometime last year, I got a phone call from a man (there were three men working together on this) who said that my laptop sent out a ticket claiming there was something severely wrong with it. The guy had my personal information. He claimed there would be a fee to fix the laptop. It apparently had a lot of viruses and one particular virus that was damaging the laptop's memory.

Long story short, I give him remote access to the laptop, which then he stops talking to me and types on screen through notepad.

I was skeptical about the whole thing so he had me go through Run and look into the laptop information fir a rather long serial number. I didn't know back then that the serial number is for that brand of laptop and not a number for my personal laptop. (he was bullshitting me).

So now he has remote access and has me go to a website to pay for servixes before he does his job. I look into the website and it's poorely made. He said when I buy the $100 package, I'll get all these great virus protection services as well as a general computer cleaner to keep my laptop running smooth.

I told him I'll just take it to a loxal computer repair because my fiancé wanted to have it thoroughly checked. He got nervous and upset. I told him to cut off from local connection so I can shut down my laptop but he had control of the mouse and wouldn't let me click shut down so i hard shut down the laptop by pressing and holding the power button.

I cuss him out and hang up. This man calls me back three more times but I don't pick up.

I turn on my laptop and choose the option to run it WITHOUT INTERNET CONNECTION.

I look into all my files to make sure he didn't install anything new.
He did.

In short: he downloaded a very dangerous virus onto my laptop that would collect my information every time I log into my online bank accounts or anything personal that dealt with money.

Here's the kicker.

The virus had an icon for a simple laptop virus cleaner but the virus itself was implanted into my printer's program. So every time I would activate my printer, the virus would activate.

I had to google virus removal and everything because simply removing it from my programs wasn't fixing it. I finally got it removed and THEN ran a complete factory reset and reinstall of windows twice to be sure, before I ever got back online.

I rwported the phone numbers and names to the non-emergency police phone number and I haven't heard from them since.

These fake technician have been around since years ago worldwide, I think. There were so many reports that I found regarding them, at blogs, complaint board sites like Removed (BW), or even at social media like Facebook and Twitter. I don't know how much money have been lost to these scammers, but the only hope is police department and similar authorities. I think the best way to report it is to something like FTC for US, or CRTC for Canada. Depends on where do you live.

My very elderly mother receives many calls like this and she has done everything she has been told to connect up her computer, but there's just one problem - she doesn't have an internet connection

I do my best to get the message about scams over to her but most times she seems to deal with them adequately, if not for the right reason. The fact that she knows a criminal is talking to her doesn't seem to stop her trying to be helpful, but it must drive them round the bend that someone so compliant simply can't help them.

When they call about accidents and injuries they're lucky if they can get off the phone.