Background: My sweet, trusting, eldery mother was browsing the internet on Feb 11 2016 and a pop-up box appeared telling her she had a virus on her computer, and that she could get help by calling McCheckup on 1-800-776-712.
Mum, bless her, called the phone number.
She ended up spending three hours on the phone to technical support people at McCheckup (Roy, and others). They guided her through the installation of TeamView software on her computer so that they could gain remote access to it, and they informed her that she needed AVG Internet Security. They charged her USD$99 for "fixing the issue" and she paid USD$59 for the AVG software.
It's possible that AVG found "malicious cookies" or something when they ran the scan, sure. Were they causing mum problems? No.
Is this a scam?
It depends on your definition of scam. [actually it was, see below] She had no virus on her computer, so the initial "problem" that they sought to "fix" was in fact a non-problem. Yes they did install a legitimate piece of third party software (AVG Internet Security), but did she really need it?
If you want AntiVirus software, you can get AVG for free from here http://free.avg.com/
If you need help with your computer, try calling friends or family first. If you would like to take it to a professional, try a local company and support your local businesses. A quick search on google will find you plenty of local PC Fixit guys. As your friends who they use.
If you have any problems with a local company then you can report them to your local enforcement agencies, the police, the fraud office etc. McCheckup operate over the internet so your local enforcement agencies are unlikely to be able to do anything about them if they do operate fraudulently.
An analogy
Imagine your sweet elderly mother is sitting at home watching her favourite program on the TV, and then the doorbell rings. There stands a man in overalls with a clipboard. His overalls and the van parked on the street have a big "McFumigate" logo on them. The man tells your mother that he believes there are dustmites in her house. "Really??" she says. "Oh yes madam - they can cause allergies and even anaphylactic shock!". "Oh no!"
The man convinces your mother to pay USD $99 to have the house fumigated, and USD $59 for a dehumidifier that will reduce the likelihood of dustmites "returning".
How would you feel about that?
What now?
I rang McCheckup on their UK number (0-800-920-2033) and after talking with Roy was put through to Ronnie in compliance/customer services. I have politely requested a full refund because
1/ They invented the problem that they then claim to have fixed
2/ We do not need their services going forwards
3/ AVG offer a 30 day no-questions asked refund: https://support.avg.com/support_sales?l=en_US
They said that it will take them 24-48hours to come back to me. Ronnie says that it's likely they will have to make a deduction.
Do you think that McFumigate should keep any of the $158, or should they give the $158 back to your mother and take the dehumidifier away?
Personally I hope they do the honourable thing and give a full refund. I will keep you posted.
UPDATE (14 Feb):
Mum just told me that when she was on the phone to them she said she would just turn it off and call me. They told her that she couldn't do that because the computer might never work again. Manipulation & deception.
UPDATE 2 (16 Feb):
After being told on 13 Feb by Damien Hunter in "Compliance" at McCheckup that mum would be refunded the $99 service fee, no money has arrived nor any other communication.
Separately I have verified with AVG that the license key McCheckup "sold" to mum was in fact refunded on Feb 9. (2 days before mum supposedly bought it). This is a clear-cut case of fraud. We have activated the fraud department at mum's bank.
FYI the fraudulently sold AVG key was registered to the email address purchasing@rainnetworks.com
UPDATE 3 (11 March)
Obviously no refund has arrived so I called again.
Teresa in billing says that Damien Hunter has left the company.
"Just give me a minute"
"It has been refunded and will take 10-11 days to arrive in your account"
I asked when the refund was initiated, after "checking some details" for a minute, she said "It was initiated however don't have the details and will ask the billing team. "
Teresa is now no longer in the billing team it seems
I also explained that the AVG license was illegitimate and that they needed to refund that as well. She said she needed to look into it and would contact me in a few hours.
UPDATE 4 (14 March)
They called both me and my mum to say that they needed additional details. I just spent 10 minutes on the phone to them where they tried to tell me that they had accidentally sent the wrong license key and would like to send a new one. Of course, no email from AVG arrived with any license details so this is just another ploy. Selling someone a stolen car and then offering to replace it with a non-stolen one does not absolve the seller of all crimes. I explained that a full refund was the only acceptable outcome. They are going to call me back.
UPDATE 5 (22 March)
Just spoke to "Teresa" at 9:10am UK time, and she told me that the refund was initiated yesterday, for the full amount. She indicated that it could take 10-15 business days to be processed. I will check again in 3 weeks and if there has been no refund then I will hand it over to mum's bank to deal with. Since they have said they would give a full refund, not giving it is 100% clear-cut fraud.
UPDATE 6 (28 March)
McCheckup have provided a full refund now.
I was quite persistent...
MC Checkup is a scam, and they scammed me of $2,400 by winning my trust then 3 years later scamming me by claiming they wanted to reimburse me money. Its a long story, involving itunes cards. I repoerted them to the police and to iTunes but it was too late. Tehy have the gall to still call me from time to time and now they want my credit card details to pay me back what they stole... including cvv! I know i was an idiot to have trusted them, but if they had not won my trust over that period I would never have fallen for thsi, but I'm not that much of an idiot!
ReplyDeleteI used mc checkup a few years ago. I had a 1 year contract with them and all seemed ok. Now 2 years later I recieve an email saying I signed an automatic renewal for a 3 year contract worth $599 Us dollars. I tried to call them on 2 different numbers that wouldnt go through and emailed 2 different emails that failed to go through. So I cancelled my card. All of a sudden their leaving me phone messages from the same number I tried saying I urgently needed to contact them. Not cool. I never signed anything saying I wanted to use them again. Dont trust them at all.
ReplyDeleteyep getting same letter. All credit cards from a few years ago have changed or been upgraded so no automatic deduction is possible
DeleteI hope
Theya re scammers
Yep they are a scam. Thanks to my bank i did not loose any more money. But they have shut down my computer which is now at the repair shop. Why has the law not shjt them down.
ReplyDeleteI've received that email now too, and checked with my bank whether I had a direct debit set up with them, but as suspected thankfully I did not. If a direct debit had been set up then why would they say that they would need access to your computer to disable the direct debit? Noone else requires that or contacts you to warn you. It is frustrating that they are not being held to account. They are indian but the number they were using when they called me during the scam was in Melbourne so they are also locally based.
ReplyDeleteThe exact same thing happened to me as yeshe an Indian calling from Melbourne, but I caught him out he said he was in the US. SCAMMERS SHOULD BE KICKED OUT OF THE COUNTRY!
ReplyDeleteI've been receiving emails as well saying that $599.99 US will be automatically deducted today. I've tried calling the number they provided with no success. Do I just ignore it or is there something else I should do.
ReplyDeleteHi! Oh dear - Call your credit card company and cancel the card and tell them about the scam..
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI am highly impressed with the writing skills of this writer thank you so much for posting this here it helped me with the fix of Avast antivirus. Avg UK | Avg Phone Number
ReplyDeleteThis last week I have had a very bad experience with MCCheckup:-
ReplyDelete* Whilst having computer issues some years ago I did sign up with MCCHECKUP and they did help sort out the issues.
* I received an email saying that $600 US would be automatically taken from my Credit Card to renew the deal.
* I replied to the emails saying that I did not wish to renew the membership.
* I then rang +6188120074 which I suspect is a South Australian Number, the call was answered but we were not able to speak?
* I was immediately called back by James Morgan (Mild Indian accent) and he seemed quite friendly and gave me his ID no? He then said that he would refund me a portion of the $600 being $300 and all I needed to do was Logon to my Bank Account and the $300 would be transferred straight away,
* At this point I logged onto my Bank Account(BIG MISTAKE) and he/they took control of my computer using "Teamview" and a couple of other programs. I spent quite a bit of tie looking at a blank screen.
* Next thing my Bank Account balance had increased by $3000 not $300 as agreed, the money supposedly transferred from a NAB account.
* James then came back and began spinning a sob story about how he would loose his job and his family would starve if he didn't recover $3000-$300=$2700.
* He/they then set up an International transfer(in Rupees) using Western Union to the Punjab National Bank in India, at which point I objected very strongly, unplugged the computer and told him that I would not do that but was prepared to make a legitimate transfer back to his/their NAB account if I had control of the arrangement.
* He continually threatened me with what he would do to my computer, and how he would take the original $600 from another account. I could see him/them continually changing the Administrator password on my computer.
* After 2 hours of argument, me unplugging my computer a few times and hanging up on him more than once, when he kept asking for my drivers licence no and telling me that it was a government requirement.
* It all ended with them removing the $3000 overpayment from my Bank Account and my computer locked up.
* I then went to my local ATM and found that my original savings were still OK.
* Thinking back it is quite obvious what their plan was, As soon as I authorized any sort of money transfer they would have removed the $3000 supposed overpayment from my Bank Account Screen and taken the money from my Savings.
* He did say more than once that it would all happen right before my eyes! He kept asking me did I intend to keep his $3000, to which I constantly replied that I was happy to return his money if I had control of the deal, which he would not relinquish under any circumstances.
* I admit I was sucked in and should have been much more aware, he was a very smooth talker.
* Conclusion BE VERY CAREFUL OF ANYTHING TO DO WITH MCCHECKUP!!!!