eProtectionz.com
Complaint 126718 Details

A company called eProtectionz.com scammed my 75 year old father on Saturday night (Melbourne, Australia). Their method is almost identical to what is described by others on this site. Telephoning late at night, having my father read out what may be registry errors or similar, then allowing remote access for the 'technicians' to fix critical errors (Microsoft XP). They then obtained credit card details for a 12 month support package. In this instance they appear to have installed a Windows 'clean up' type program and left the Norton Anti-virus installed. What is of particular concern to me is the timing of this scam. Having just provided my father with my old computer that had been lying dormant for a couple of years, I made two phone calls - one to Telstra Bigpond Technical support for email account assistance, then the next to the help number to Norton after failing to complete the online renewal process for an expired subscription. These were the only two times that I disclosed my father's phone number. After the Norton help took down these details in an attempt to find the account details they then advised me to purchase a new product on line. Shortly after this, the first call came from a sub continental sounding male. My father called me over to the phone, however they had hung up before speaking to me. Too bad I wasn't there five hours later when they rang again. My father, thinking that it was time to show some IT independence after the help I had given him that day, and seeing how I had previously allowed Telstra to remote log in to assist with the email problem, was feeling quite proud of himself in dealing with the 'problem'. Recently retired, he has been taking 'baby steps' in improving his computer literacy. Hopefully he wont be too fearful of using the computer after this experience.

So a critical question for me is - where's the leak? Within Norton? I will try to contact them to see how they respond to the question.