Alertsoft (payment made from Credit card to merchant:ESUPPORT)
Complaint 38061 Details

In August 2011, I made four payments to a merchant ESUPPORT via PAYPAL.
I am now certain that I was the victim of a scam.
The very same scam was described on the BBC radio 4 “Today” programme on 11NOV2011.

On 29AUG2011 I received an unsolicited telephone call in connection with my computer. The caller offered to fix any problems I had with my computer and went on to suggest the kind of problem I might be having.

It so happened that I had picked up a trojan a couple of weeks before, and the trojan was sending out e-mails to my contacts offering to sell Viagra. Although I thought that I had removed the trojan, I was still disturbed by the possibility that I had not done so. So I allowed the caller to take remote charge of my computer. I had not seen this done before, and I must admit to being impressed.

I paid £176.00 via Paypal. If that was what it cost to clean up my computer, then I was prepared to pay it. There seemed to be an elaborate procedure to protect me from any unauthorised further payments from my credit card. So again I was impressed.

I then paid a further £66.00 for no reason that I could discern.
The caller announced that he was speaking from a company called: Alertsoft.

On two subsequent occasions, I received calls from Alertsoft, and I am ashamed to say that I paid a further £106.00 and £95.00 before I began to suspect that this was a scam, and that Alertsoft had found in me, an easy “mark” worth returning to for more easy money. Subsequently I ended telephone calls from Alertsoft without parting with more money.

What I now believe.
Initially, I had no proof that Alertsoft was a scam.
But I had the following suspicions.

• 1 - I can run a program which detects 170 “registry errors” on my computer. Not one of them was fixed by Alertsoft.
• 2 - I received no written communication from Alertsoft.
• 3 - The initial “session” left my computer with an extra problem. I tried contacting the “guaranteed 24/7 help centre” on telephone number: 020 814 46097. It happened to be a bank holiday. There was no answer.
• 4 - The scammers were Asians (which was obvious from their accents) but had given themselves false, western, names. Why would you trust anyone with a false name?
• 5 - I now suspect that the original infection by a trojan was from an e-mail connected with Alertsoft (offering unfeasibly cheap printer cartridges).
• 6 - The report on the BBC has confirmed my suspicions.

What is to be done?
Obviously I would like my money returned.
But I would also like to see the scammers put behind bars.
Do I think Paypal is in any way responsible for this scam?
Clearly that is not the case. However, Paypal has facilitated the scam (unless Alertsoft have managed to set up a parallel version of Paypal).

There must certainly be other victims. The BBC reporter (Ruaidh Cellan Jones, its technology correspondent) detected the scam before money changed hands.

Paypal is ideally placed to end this scam, and to take the necessary action to recover monies for ALL victims.

I sent this information to a Paypal "help" desk but received no reply. It feels to me like Paypal is effectively cooperating with the criminals.