At least two Ada County residents have lost thousands of dollars to a computer scam where criminals posing as tech support tricked people into giving them access to their computers.
In both cases, the residents got emails from a company thanking them for a tech support payment from their bank accounts. When the residents called or emailed the companies to find out what was going on, the criminals were able to convince the residents to allow them access to their computers by downloading a program, by claiming there was a “bug” or other problem they could fix over the internet.
They then convinced the residents to open their bank accounts, so they could the tech support money back. That allowed the criminals to get access to the victim’s bank accounts. The thieves then stole thousands of dollars from each account.
While the whole concept of tech support can be overwhelming, it’s vitally important that you never allow strangers access to your computer or financial records over the internet.
The scammers used the names of real software or tech companies, so please be extra careful when sharing any financial information online.
Similar internet and phone scams keep happening in our community, so please be wary if anyone asks for personal or financial information. A sure sign of a scam is if someone asks you to go to the store and move money to a pre-paid credit card (like a Green Dot) or gift cards to pay a bill or judgement or anything else like that.