Have you been scammed on the Internet yet?

caseyatbat16 · Mar 11, 2010

:cryBe careful of those offers of "free" anti-virus which abound on the Internet. I got scammed by CyberDefender which touted itself as one of the best "free" anti-virus softwares anywhere. I bit. Then I got bitten. Once it was downloaded and I had run a scan it claimed there were several "flaws" which should be removed. I tried to remove them. They refused to be removed - again and again I tried but could not remove them. Then I found that my newly-installed AT&T U-Verse Wireless High-Speed offered a free McAfee anti-virus to its customers. So I proceeded to try to un-install the CyberDefender. Impossible. There was no way I could get rid of it so I contacted the website where I got it and they switched me to a techie in India who proceeded to take over my computer and, finally got rid of the "freebie" and then proceeded to try to hustle me into believing my PC was contaminated by all kinds of boogers. For only $249 one of his assistants, a fully acredited Microsoft technician (in his words) could cleanse my PC. I demurred. That was last Monday and I'm still trying to straighten my PC out and get rid of the crap the fakir obviously put in it. My PC hasn't functioned properly since I downloaded that sorry CyberDefender "freebie" and the fakir screwed it up even worse. It's a pity there is no overseer on the Internet to warn people about crooks like this - a type of Better Business Bureau of the Net.

dr.moriarty · Mar 11, 2010

Welcome to Major Geeks, caseyatbat16!

Have you been scammed on the Internet yet?
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Nope! I have not been disappointed in my layered protection suggested by this guide:

How to Protect yourself from malware!

If you would like our help - follow these steps -

READ & RUN ME FIRST. Malware Removal Guide

and attach the requested logs when you finish these instructions.

**** If something does not run, write down the info to explain to us later but keep on going. ****

Do not assume that because one step does not work that they all will not. MGtools will frequently run even when all other tools will not.

After completing the READ & RUN ME and attaching your logs, make sure that you tell us what problems still remain ( if any still do )!

Helpful Notes:

If you run into problems trying to run the READ & RUN ME or any of the scans in normal boot mode, you can run the steps in safe boot mode but make sure you tell us what you did later when you post logs. See the below if you do not know how to boot in safe mode:

[*]Starting your computer in Safe mode

If you have problems downloading on the problem PC, download the tools and the manual updates for SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes ( links are given in the READ & RUN ME) onto another PC and then burn to a CD. Then copy them to the problem PC. You will have to skip getting updates if (and only if) your internet connection does not work. Yes you could use a flash drive too but flash drives are writeable and infections can spread to them.

If you cannot seem to login to an infected user account, try using a different user account (if you have one) in either normal or safe boot mode and running only SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes while logged into this other user account. Then reboot and see if you can log into the problem user account. If you can then run SUPERAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes, ComboFix and MGtools on the infected account as requested in the instructions.

To avoid additional delay in getting a response, it is strongly advised that after completing the READ & RUN ME you also read this sticky:

Don't Bump! It Only Hurts You!!!

Any additional post is a bump which will add more delay. Once you attach the logs, your thread will be in the work queue and as stated our system works the oldest threads FIRST.

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dr.m

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Have you been scammed on the Internet yet?

caseyatbat16 Private E-2

dr.moriarty Malware Super Sleuth Staff Member