Watch out for website keying errors!
By Martin White
Martin is a Director, Chief Troubleshooter, and Founder of PC-FIXED. He has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years and likes to explore and develop ideas for the application of the latest technology in everyday lives.
Your browser predictive text might get you in trouble…
A client of mine recently fell foul of a scam which was highly believable. I have outlined the story so as to help others avoid the same trap! Here is the scenario:
After purchasing a one-year subscription to office365, she started following the instructions to install.
She meant to type into her browser “office.com/setup”. However, as she typed the browser offered close match options one of which was “officesetuptoday.com”. She selected this and was presented with a what looked like Microsoft’s Office365 setup screen which then allowed her to enter her product key but then informed her of an installation error and told her to call support. There were US, UK, AUS, and South Africa phone numbers to call.
As you have probably surmised, this is a scam site which leads victims into calling a support line who then scares the user by saying the computer has been hacked, asks to take remote control, then piles on the misery by deleting files and bullying the user into taking out a preventative anti-virus anti-hacking subscription for £200….
When you type in a website into a browser you often get suggestions based on what you have already typed. Just be careful that you only select the site you actually want.
If you think this may have already happened to you, switch off your computer and call for help.