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Need some help here my grandmother fell victim to a computer repair fraud in which she was contacted by a company out of the blue claiming their was an issue with her computer she was told what to do and enter on to her computer to see evidence of the issue and suddenly her computer had started popping up all these false reports her computer had been working fine until this company got their hands on it. They told her they could provide remote support to her for £390.00 which could be made via paypal credit and they would fix the issues the company started work and locked her out of her computer and started changing her passwords installed a remote assistance app they had added folders to her computer with her name on and copied files to them.
When I inspected her computer I found a Mikey mouse receipt which told her they would provide her with the following remote assistance, Antihacking software, a Perpetual windows licence and a antivirus licence for £390.00 the company spent quite a long time on the phone to her and convinced her to make payment she told them she would only make the payment via paypa they told her this was fine but when I checked it turned out they had used a third party payment processor to bill her paypal account. Paypal provided her with credit as she had paypal credit at the point of sale but the company had led my grandmother into believing she was authorising payment to them through paypal when in fact she was paying a payment processor whom then processed the payment to the Payee in other words the computer repair crooks.
My grandmother started to become suspicious when her computer started behaving badly in feburary but thought nothing of it as she was not really computer literate. What she noticed was that everytime she tried logging in to her computer and open up a window to work on whilst she was working on it and not touching the mouse the mouse moved and suddenly the computer would shut the window down she would then sit back and notice the mouse was moving off its own accord and she was not touching her mouse to move the pointer files where being copied to the cloud and when she tried to use skype to chat to her friends in ireland the windows would suddenly be closed on her.
As she became more suspicious she asked my cousin for help to reinstall windows but everytime he tried to do anything he was stopped and the mouse would move of its own accord. My cousin himself became suspicious of this and brought the computer to me as I am studying computing and have some programming experience as well as having previously helped out in a computer shop. I then spoke to my grandmother and she told me how the mouse would move of its own accord and windows would shut down as a result I began investigating this issue and the so called company. I found the company did not exist and the numbers they gave linked to another company name I then found the other company said they did not offer computer repair services and that another company had stolen their identity whilst carrying out a check of the company I found all the details they gave linked to computer repair fraud. whilst I began investigating the problems and trying to fix the computer the so called remote assistance app became active and reports started to be generated about issues with the computer I then examined the computer deeper and found whilst working on the computer the cursor was moving of its own accord again and trying to reverse the work I did stopping key loggers etc running so as quick as a flash I realised the fraudster where on I sent them a message on the app.
The message I sent read "I know that your software is the source of the infection on this computer and I know you are causing this computer to malfunction I also know you defrauded an old lady out of hundreds of pounds for a non existant computer repair and that I have passed this information on to GCHQ national cybersecurity center and and to action fraud and police scotland it is an offence to cause a computer to deliberatley malfunction for monetary gain under the miss use of computers act and is also considered an offence under the prevention of terrorism act as it is classed as an act of terrorism and the police now have the details of your fraud and European as well as international arrest warrants and uk wide arrest warrants will be issued for your arrest on grounds of terrorism I pointed out GCHQ has the power to track them down and will track them down and told them a tracker was running at current" The company then attempted to close down the services and remove their software but I was one step ahead and shut off their connection to the computer permanently at this point I knew the company was a fraud and where running scared. I enjoyed unfettered ability to change and alter the computer on investigation I found over 7000 viruses keyloggers and malware as well as tracking cookies.
I also found that the so called remote assistance app had been programmed to simulate errors with the computer when I reasearched for a name for the company on the computer I found a so called reciept which neither gave the name of the company nor did it give a company number or address it just contained a wordpad typed document saying they would provide the services I mentioned above.
As a result of the receipt I decided to look at their claims I found the company had not provided a perpetual windows licence windows had provided that themselves when My grandmother bought the computer and I found they had not provided the licence for the antivirus programme as the licence had already been provided by Sky my grand mothers ISP further to that I found no evidence of antihacking software which they said they would provide a full licence for what I found is a few free versions of antivirus prorammes that did not have a premium licence and they where in fact altered so that any virus would not show up that they installed.
On closer inspection of the registry I found it had been altered as had the rootkit and malware that should have been showing up under the genuine antivirus programme under normal circumstances did not show as a result of the alteration to the root kit and registry. I began running vairous malware removal tools and managed to remove over 7000 peices of malware I then decided the best thing to do would be to erase the drive beyond recovery so I ran a hard drive erasure programe to make sure I killed everything on the computer I also encrypted the hard drive during this process then ran the programme again to wipe the drive clean a second time I reinstalled the computer and found that the infection had been so severe the hardware on the computer had been severly damaged by the infection As a result I decided not to give my Granny back her computer and spoke to my auntie as she has the ability to make financial decisions based on an agreement with my grand mothers bank and we instead bought her a newer computer with greater hightened security and gave myself remote monitoring powers.
I decided to raise a dispute with paypal as my Granny made the payment out of her paypal credit balance which is regulated under the consumer credit act 1974 I pointed out she had been a victim of push fraud which the FCA says now includes computer repair fraud and asked them to refund the money but they refused without even reading the email properly as it gave a brief outline of why she was entitled to her money back and the laws that had been broken by this firm. They refused I then did some digging and found the company which debited the money on behalf of the computer repair fraudsters was a payment processor acting on behalf of the fraudsters to demand the money from my grannys paypal credit balance. I fired of another email to paypal pointing out the FCA says she is entitled to a refund as firstly my granny did not know she was authorising a third party payment processor and the FCA says even in this case she is still entitled to a refund as the company in question acted on behalf of the payee and the Payee had committed fraud and as a creditor they are obliged under section 75 to refund this money as fraud had been comitted and the FCA guidelines makes it clear she is entitled to a refund as paypal would still be responsible under UK Law but again they have refused.
I would appreciate it if you could help I have been trying to find the relevant legislation an guidelines on push payment fraud but cannot seem to find it on the FCA website and cannot seem to find the relevant sections for My Grand mothers case. in legislation either its a bit of a nightmare trying to navigate this I would appreciate some advice and help on what to say to paypal to accept their legal responsibilities and duty of care to an elderly disabled woman who is hard of hearing and not very computer literate.
I am happy to say however she has her new computer now and is managing to use it ok though she did not like it at first. I am also happy to say in terms of security I have her locked down like fort knox she will not be able to fall for that stunt again.
P.s. sorry about the long post and the grammar and spelling errors this is due to having dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD and OCD and I wanted to give you a full brief of the problem. It seems like this is not the first time paypal has refused to payout to victims of computer repair fraud and it wont be the last high time someone did something about paypals reluctance to refund customers when they have been the victim of fraud.
Need some help here my grandmother fell victim to a computer repair fraud in which she was contacted by a company out of the blue claiming their was an issue with her computer she was told what to do and enter on to her computer to see evidence of the issue and suddenly her computer had started popping up all these false reports her computer had been working fine until this company got their hands on it. They told her they could provide remote support to her for £390.00 which could be made via paypal credit and they would fix the issues the company started work and locked her out of her computer and started changing her passwords installed a remote assistance app they had added folders to her computer with her name on and copied files to them.
When I inspected her computer I found a Mikey mouse receipt which told her they would provide her with the following remote assistance, Antihacking software, a Perpetual windows licence and a antivirus licence for £390.00 the company spent quite a long time on the phone to her and convinced her to make payment she told them she would only make the payment via paypa they told her this was fine but when I checked it turned out they had used a third party payment processor to bill her paypal account. Paypal provided her with credit as she had paypal credit at the point of sale but the company had led my grandmother into believing she was authorising payment to them through paypal when in fact she was paying a payment processor whom then processed the payment to the Payee in other words the computer repair crooks.
My grandmother started to become suspicious when her computer started behaving badly in feburary but thought nothing of it as she was not really computer literate. What she noticed was that everytime she tried logging in to her computer and open up a window to work on whilst she was working on it and not touching the mouse the mouse moved and suddenly the computer would shut the window down she would then sit back and notice the mouse was moving off its own accord and she was not touching her mouse to move the pointer files where being copied to the cloud and when she tried to use skype to chat to her friends in ireland the windows would suddenly be closed on her.
As she became more suspicious she asked my cousin for help to reinstall windows but everytime he tried to do anything he was stopped and the mouse would move of its own accord. My cousin himself became suspicious of this and brought the computer to me as I am studying computing and have some programming experience as well as having previously helped out in a computer shop. I then spoke to my grandmother and she told me how the mouse would move of its own accord and windows would shut down as a result I began investigating this issue and the so called company. I found the company did not exist and the numbers they gave linked to another company name I then found the other company said they did not offer computer repair services and that another company had stolen their identity whilst carrying out a check of the company I found all the details they gave linked to computer repair fraud. whilst I began investigating the problems and trying to fix the computer the so called remote assistance app became active and reports started to be generated about issues with the computer I then examined the computer deeper and found whilst working on the computer the cursor was moving of its own accord again and trying to reverse the work I did stopping key loggers etc running so as quick as a flash I realised the fraudster where on I sent them a message on the app.
The message I sent read "I know that your software is the source of the infection on this computer and I know you are causing this computer to malfunction I also know you defrauded an old lady out of hundreds of pounds for a non existant computer repair and that I have passed this information on to GCHQ national cybersecurity center and and to action fraud and police scotland it is an offence to cause a computer to deliberatley malfunction for monetary gain under the miss use of computers act and is also considered an offence under the prevention of terrorism act as it is classed as an act of terrorism and the police now have the details of your fraud and European as well as international arrest warrants and uk wide arrest warrants will be issued for your arrest on grounds of terrorism I pointed out GCHQ has the power to track them down and will track them down and told them a tracker was running at current" The company then attempted to close down the services and remove their software but I was one step ahead and shut off their connection to the computer permanently at this point I knew the company was a fraud and where running scared. I enjoyed unfettered ability to change and alter the computer on investigation I found over 7000 viruses keyloggers and malware as well as tracking cookies.
I also found that the so called remote assistance app had been programmed to simulate errors with the computer when I reasearched for a name for the company on the computer I found a so called reciept which neither gave the name of the company nor did it give a company number or address it just contained a wordpad typed document saying they would provide the services I mentioned above.
As a result of the receipt I decided to look at their claims I found the company had not provided a perpetual windows licence windows had provided that themselves when My grandmother bought the computer and I found they had not provided the licence for the antivirus programme as the licence had already been provided by Sky my grand mothers ISP further to that I found no evidence of antihacking software which they said they would provide a full licence for what I found is a few free versions of antivirus prorammes that did not have a premium licence and they where in fact altered so that any virus would not show up that they installed.
On closer inspection of the registry I found it had been altered as had the rootkit and malware that should have been showing up under the genuine antivirus programme under normal circumstances did not show as a result of the alteration to the root kit and registry. I began running vairous malware removal tools and managed to remove over 7000 peices of malware I then decided the best thing to do would be to erase the drive beyond recovery so I ran a hard drive erasure programe to make sure I killed everything on the computer I also encrypted the hard drive during this process then ran the programme again to wipe the drive clean a second time I reinstalled the computer and found that the infection had been so severe the hardware on the computer had been severly damaged by the infection As a result I decided not to give my Granny back her computer and spoke to my auntie as she has the ability to make financial decisions based on an agreement with my grand mothers bank and we instead bought her a newer computer with greater hightened security and gave myself remote monitoring powers.
I decided to raise a dispute with paypal as my Granny made the payment out of her paypal credit balance which is regulated under the consumer credit act 1974 I pointed out she had been a victim of push fraud which the FCA says now includes computer repair fraud and asked them to refund the money but they refused without even reading the email properly as it gave a brief outline of why she was entitled to her money back and the laws that had been broken by this firm. They refused I then did some digging and found the company which debited the money on behalf of the computer repair fraudsters was a payment processor acting on behalf of the fraudsters to demand the money from my grannys paypal credit balance. I fired of another email to paypal pointing out the FCA says she is entitled to a refund as firstly my granny did not know she was authorising a third party payment processor and the FCA says even in this case she is still entitled to a refund as the company in question acted on behalf of the payee and the Payee had committed fraud and as a creditor they are obliged under section 75 to refund this money as fraud had been comitted and the FCA guidelines makes it clear she is entitled to a refund as paypal would still be responsible under UK Law but again they have refused.
I would appreciate it if you could help I have been trying to find the relevant legislation an guidelines on push payment fraud but cannot seem to find it on the FCA website and cannot seem to find the relevant sections for My Grand mothers case. in legislation either its a bit of a nightmare trying to navigate this I would appreciate some advice and help on what to say to paypal to accept their legal responsibilities and duty of care to an elderly disabled woman who is hard of hearing and not very computer literate.
I am happy to say however she has her new computer now and is managing to use it ok though she did not like it at first. I am also happy to say in terms of security I have her locked down like fort knox she will not be able to fall for that stunt again.
P.s. sorry about the long post and the grammar and spelling errors this is due to having dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD and OCD and I wanted to give you a full brief of the problem. It seems like this is not the first time paypal has refused to payout to victims of computer repair fraud and it wont be the last high time someone did something about paypals reluctance to refund customers when they have been the victim of fraud.
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