Googling customer support numbers could make you a goal for scammers

OREM — When you need assistance with some form of downside — it might be a glitch with a product you’ve got purchased or possibly a billing concern with a service you employ — your first intuition is perhaps to Google an organization’s buyer help quantity. It is an intuition scammers are counting on.

Brad Whittaker signed up for a free trial run of YouTube TV.

“To see if it has what we want,” he mentioned.

But what Whittaker acquired was an entire lot of connection bother, he mentioned. So, he fired up Google to seek for YouTube’s help hotline.

“I did do quite a bit of searching back and around for quite some time,” he mentioned.

When a cellphone quantity lastly popped up, Whittaker dialed it.

“They said, ‘YouTube TV, how can we help you?'” he recalled. The individual on the opposite finish first requested him for his account data. But then — dangerous information.

“‘It looks like there’s been some fraudulent charges against this account,'” the consultant informed Whittaker. “We need to identify that you are the actual person that tried to sign up for this.”

The rep talked him into downloading distant entry software program onto his cellphone.

“That helps us when we’re doing work to help our clients,” the rep informed Whittaker, who then acquired him to open his banking app.

“He said, ‘Well, let’s see (if) we can get rid of these fraudulent charges,'” Whittaker mentioned.

The actuality is that there have been no fraudulent expenses. The rep made all that up. He was an impostor who now had entry to Whittaker’s checking account. In all, Whittaker mentioned he misplaced $5,000.

Fake numbers in all places

“If you broke into my home while my family was not there, you would get a lot less,” mentioned Kristin Lewis, chief product officer at cybersecurity agency Aura.

She mentioned pretend help numbers for trusted manufacturers are in all places on-line.

“It is a huge risk that a lot of people, I think, don’t think through until you realize it’s too late,” Lewis mentioned.

You know you are talking to an impostor rep in the event that they’re pressuring you for delicate private or monetary data. And in the event that they ask you to put in any app in your system.

“There’s almost no tech support company out there that would really need to download an app on your phone in order to troubleshoot an issue,” mentioned Lewis.

She mentioned the easiest way to dodge an impostor is to not Google a customer support quantity whenever you need assistance. Instead, go on to the corporate’s web site.

Watching for on-line complaints

Posting a customer support criticism on social media or on a web-based discussion board also can put you within the crosshairs of a scammer. Fraudsters are creating pretend buyer help accounts that reply to these complaints with pretend information that may result in stolen private and monetary information.