New twist to scamming

Jacee is referring to this:

Borg 386 said:

I do know that they put a link on the desktop that said "Tech Support" & when I clicked it, it went nowhere, "Page not found."

Ah, thanks - cheap $tore glasses ... again!

Jacee said:

Did you look at the 'properties' on the tech support link?

Yepperz, I did check to make sure it wasn't a .exe disguised as a web link.

Usually details are in the contract that will usually state you'd be paying for the service not the software the service might use
Even Norton uses third party free software to clean infections when they fail to block something so the use of free goodies is normal the only difference might be Norton cleans it's tracts

Yeah, that is true Thrash, but I disagree with the way these people are running a somewhat underhanded service. Cold calling people, claiming to be affiliated with MS, renaming a free tool to something else & then charging for what they say is "their software." They shouldn't take credit for other peoples hard work.

I think the author of the tool might want to put a disclaimer up front like some of the free tools have, saying if you paid for this software, you were ripped off.

Unfortunately, it isn't (as far as I know) illegal to sell something that is free if someone wants to pay for it. Look at the MS store, they just recently had to clean up due to the large amount of "apps" that people were selling, & it turned out they were nothing but instructions on how to d/l the software.

I have to wonder if they decided to refund some of the money because they didn't want any complaints filed against them.

The elderly are unfortunately easy prey
But yes that was an added twist rename and saying they are affiliated with Microsoft,
The BBB might be a good thing to report to along with the other used developers :)

All this stuff needs to be documented well so if anything misleading is in writing ? might have a good case for a refund

I would think a full refund, but the question is, do they have a legal leg to stand on? They paid for a product, the fact that it was free is besides the point. I haven't seen them today yet, so I don't know what the CC company told them. And the company does claim they "optimized" his PC while they were connected to it. That could anything from emptying the trash to running the Windows cleanup program.

I don't know all the facts, they could be a legit company & that's just the way they operate, although it is a lousy business model if you ask me.

No doubt snakes,
But without the actual agreement to go by ?
Learning via hard knocks

Allot of these companies will give a partial refund if not full just to keep bad press or reporting quite
Some evidence does need to be collected that you found might make it easier ?
You might try to bait an email support ticket for them

Another factor here is what was actually said to the person vs how they interpreted it. Without a recording of the call we will never know. I've had calls where they'll say stuff like they are MS specialists or something similar and the person could have interpreted that to mean they were saying they were affiliated with MS. As I said earlier, the contract may have been just to optimize and maintain the PC and not an actual charge for the software. Was the callee sent an invoice?

Maybe the company contracted with the author of the software for custom branding of the software?

I really don't think this is a scam, more likely an aggressive, fast talking salesperson.

@ Thrash - They said the rep told them the service was cancelled, so no chance of baiting them.

@ Strollin - Yeah, that's true. Since I didn't hear the call I can't say for sure. As far as I know, they never got an invoice confirmation, E Mail or paper. I think it might be in that realm though, a fast talking salesperson preying on the fears of people having an infected PC. Close to a scam but not quite.

As far as I'm concerned though, it might as well be a scam.