I Need Some Advice On My Netgear

The other day I called NetGear because I was having trouble getting my printer to connect threw my router to my computer. They did a remote assist and went threw my laptop and told me since my router was to old (older then 90 days) I had to pay $200.00 for them to fix it and that I had an infected IP address and if I did not pay them to fix it that every electronic device I have would be ate up with this problem and I would lose every device connected to my IP. Then today my niece went to go to her collage classes and she could not get her laptop to connect to the internet. So she called them and they basically did the same thing. Had her hard wire to the router then a remote assist and told her the IP was ate up with bad stuff and her laptop was ate up and for $200.00 they would be happy to fix the problem. I do not have $200.00 to spend on an idiot to mess up my computer nor does she. Can someone help us out please.

 

It sounds like your Netgear router is infected and needs its firmware flashed. What is the model number of the router and was this router supplied by your ISP?

 

My router is a NetGear NightHawk AC2600 and no it was not supplied by my ISP I just bought it 2 weeks ago.

 

Is this your router - https://www.netgear.com/support/product/R7800.aspx#Firmware Version 1.0.2.60

If it is, the latest firmware and upgrade instructions are found here.
I suspect that you already have the latest firmware given your router's model number, so I'm unsure as to whether flashing the same firmware would definitely clear any infection.

 

https://www.netgear.com/support/product/R7450.aspx

Mine is a Model R7450 Nighthawk AC2600 Smart WiFi Router.
Almost the same as that one.

 

The firmware download is http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/R7450/R7450-V1.2.0.32_1.0.1.zip
and the instructions can be found here.

 

Thank you so much for your help my friend. My nieces laptop still will not connect but thank you so much for your help.

 

I'm sorry, but this has too many indications that suggest this was a 'scam', despite the fact that you contacted them. I'm aware that its likely most everyone will reject this conclusion, but I must urge you to be weary. Having personally spent 2 years providing legitimate remote tech support assistance, there were several months out of the year where a large percentage of my call volume were customers whom had fallen for the various scams on the internet disguised as tech support experts.

The majority of reported scams began as a browser hijack, a web page that several users seemingly could not close. The instructions on the page insisted the user contact "Microsoft" immediately, providing a 1-800 or 1-888 number. Upon calling the number displayed, customers described a 'tech support representative' with a thick foreign accent insistent in gaining remote access to the user's system (this was reported in 100% of the cases). As the reports of these 'scams' rapidly increased, I began noticing different aspects and characteristics between cases. One of which, in particular, immediately came to mind as I read your post, leading me to believe this may likely be the case with your experience.

To this day, I'm unsure of how this is accomplished, but perhaps similar to the browser hijack scam, you believe the website you visited was Netgear, but due to some inconspicuous difference, it may, in fact, have been netgeear.com or net.gear.com, perhaps even correctly entered as netgear.com. I considered the possibility of a "drive-by" script downloading and running in the background unbeknownst to the user... at which point, a change in your DNS server's IP address is made to match one of their own which they've carefully set up to redirect you to them disguised as your name brand company's support department.

Truth be known, I'm entirely unsure how they accomplish this, but what I am sure of... is that its been done. I can almost undoubtedly assure you... Netgear isn't going to request a $200 fee over the phone during a remote assistance session. Not only that, but I'm fairly confident Netgear doesn't even offer remote assistance. It would be much more likely that they would have offered to schedule an appointment for a technician to come out on a home visit.

You may have your doubts about whether or not what I've suggested is a possibility, but I would just urge you to be weary and be cautious of anyone requesting remote access. If this looks familiar to you, then its a pretty bad sign...

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR-95B3uZok1vfLIto4LvxyERiDMDOj_qC5Nvt1WhJuLfM4rY6k


https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nz9tVIs8H_U/maxresdefault.jpg


P.S. I've never heard of an "infected IP address" and with some knowledge of computer networking, can't logically think of how this would even be possible. Your IP address is assigned by your internet service provider... and is dynamic by default. The DHCP server which gives you this address depends on how you have your Nighthawk set up. If you're using the Nighthawk as the DHCP, it's considered a private network, and your IP address will almost undoubtedly begin with 192.168... otherwise, this address comes from your ISP. It isn't something that's "infect-able" as far as I know.