Quick question, then a long story.
Question:
Will resetting a computer to it's original condition remove unwanted programs?
Story:
I went to my 96 year old mother's house one morning last week and she said she's having problems with her computer. When I went to look there were about 20 desktop shortcuts that had not been there the day before so I went into install/uninstall and managed to uninstall everything that had been downloaded on January 17th except for one. The one that would not uninstall asked me to call a number.
Turns out she was on her computer when a window popped up "your computer is infected. Call 1-800-something, to fix your problem". She called, gave them her credit card and remote access to her computer, thinking they were legitimate.
As it happened, when I was working on her computer a guy called demanding $250. He mumbled his company name but, to the gullible, made it sound like he was with Microsoft and Norton and MacAfee because he mentioned them by name. I said there's nothing wrong with the computer and he argued with me. I hung up. Several times. Each time I hung up the phone would ring again. The Caller ID wasn't a real number. He gave me 3 different names, one time said he was in-house counsel saying they'd take me to court. He demanded remote access to remove the program. No way. He said they were there 3 hours (on a Saturday) to fix her computer and demanded to be paid. When I spoke to his alternate name he admitted they weren't actually there. They called at least 20 times in a row and I finally had to call her phone company. This is actually the condensed version. During one call I asked for a phone number and he said he was in California but gave me a number with a 206 area code which I know to be WA, but doing a reverse look-up it turns out to be a cell phone. Probably a random number he picked out of his head - which head I believe was in India, not California.
The program I wasn't able to remove caused a huge red window to open up with the scrolling numbers that said over 1,000 problems had been found so far. The program was Performax (which I have been unable to find in any search). Anyway, I took her computer to the local Geek store and asked them to remove the program which they did. Since it's all I asked them to do it turns out there's more in there. Big windows still pop up (not Performax) saying there are problems but now the screen freezes and I have to hit ctrl/alt/del to get out. She doesn't grasp ctrl/alt/del so I told her to just turn it off when it happens.
Meanwhile, a couple of days later I was doing her online banking and noticed 2 charges on her MasterCard. I probably wouldn't have noticed except they were 2 charges for the same amount on the same day, totaling $160.. So I called MasterCard, had the charges reversed and they cancelled her card and issued a new one, which she hasn't received yet. The charges were from " www.safe-cart.com revenuewiwa". Safe-cart.com is actually a website, although I don't know if it's legitimate or not.
The Geek store said they'd need her computer a few days for a full diagnostic which is why I'm asking the question about resetting. She is lost without her computer and is too old to learn a laptop which is all I can lend her.
I'm more than ticked off realizing how easy it is for people to get scammed. Especially when they drop names like Microsoft, MacAfee and Norton. And since they already had her credit card information, why were they making these calls demanding money? |
