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| | | | | | |  | Lee Koo
Community manager | | | | | My friend got scammed; please help make her PC safe again
Dear CNET members,
Happy Friday! As a parent of two, I always encourage my kids to do their best. If they make a mistake, I'm usually OK with it as long as they learn from their mistakes and try not to repeat them. So, where am I going with all this? Well, in this week's topic, Janet's friend found herself scammed by some dirtbag who called her, convinced her to allow him to access her computer remotely, and eventually scammed her for money to fix computer issues she probably didn't have in the first place. It was a mistake made by Janet's friend, and I hope it is a lesson that she will never forget. If any of you ever get this type of call, please be on guard and never let anyone you don't know have remote access to your computer. Now let's see what we can do to help Janet's friend make her PC safe again after this unfortunate incident.
Well, Janet, you asked for help and you've received a great deal of support from your fellow members. Since we don't know to what extent the scammers have access to or have damaged your friend's computer, we highly recommend your friend not use the computer until the system is sanitized. As many people recommended, the first thing your friend needs to do (besides getting her computer safe for use again) is to make sure she goes onto all of her online accounts and changes her passwords. But make sure she DOES NOT use her contaminated computer to do this!!!
She should then back up all of her important data from her PC, but first scan it with a security program to make sure it's clean. And the last thing to do, as many members have recommended, is to completely wipe her hard drive clean and start over. This is the only way to ensure that what has been compromised won't come back to bite her again. All of this advice and much more can be found in this week's discussion. If you or your friend don't have the technical know-how to do this, I would highly recommend finding someone trustworthy to perform these tasks. Good luck to both of you.
Thanks everyone for jumping in to help. You are invaluable to this community and I appreciate you. Be safe out there and to all those celebrating Thanksgiving, have a wonderful holiday!
(Note: There will be no newsletter sent next week due to the Thanksgiving holiday. We'll be back the following week.)
Cheers!
-Lee
| | | | | Got suggestions? Send me an e-mail: messageboards@cnet.com | |  | TOPIC OF THE WEEK |  | | | | | | Q: My friend got scammed; please help make her PC safe again
Dear members, I hope you can help. My friend bought her first used computer. A few days later she received a phone call from someone in India who said my friend had more than 1,000 computer errors on her new computer and if she didn't do something, her computer would crash. Since my friend was very naive, she accepted what the person was telling her, then the person in India managed to talk my friend into letting her "into" her computer where she had control of the cursor. In the end the lady in India tried to sell my friend something that was, say ?200 ($322) but she could have it for ?50 ($80) or some lesser amount. This is when my friend realized she had been taken.
My friend went to where she bought the used computer and the salesperson said there is nothing she can do because the person in India managed to get into her software. He told her just don't put any personal information on the computer.
My question is: Is there anything she can do to make her computer safe again? Kind regards.
-- Submitted by: Janet | | | |  A: Featured member solutions | | | | | | | | | Thanks to all who contributed! | |  | PREVIOUS COMMUNITY NEWSLETTERS |  | | | COMMUNITY BUZZ | | | | MAC NUGGET | | | | SECURITY ALERTS AND UPDATES | | | |  | NEXT WEEK'S QUESTION |  | | | | | | Q: Time for a new PC, desktop or laptop?
It is time to replace my 7-and-a-half year old desktop PC, which is running XP. It has been having some weird hardware issues recently, like crashing (blue screen of death) every time I close my CD tray. I just don't have the expertise to figure out what's wrong, nor do I think it worth the investment to have a professional look into it.
My question is this: Is there any clear advantage to replacing it with a desktop instead of laptop? What are the advantages to having a laptop versus a desktop or vice versa? I'm a part-time college instructor (retired from my real job) and am not into gaming, so I don't require a lot of horsepower, but I do work with several applications open simultaneously. Thank you.
-- Submitted by: John H.
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