Office Depot and Support.com To Pay $35 Million To Settle FTC Allegations That They Charged Users Millions in 'Fake' Malware Cleanup Fees (theregister.co.uk) 56
Office Depot and Support.com have coughed up $35 million after they were accused of lying to people that their PCs were infected with malware in order to charge them cleanup fees. From a report: Late Wednesday, the pair of businesses settled a lawsuit brought against them by the US Federal Trade Commission, which alleged staff at the tech duo falsely claimed software nasties were lingering on customers' computers to make a fast buck. The lawsuit, filed in southern Florida, claimed the two companies, including Office Depot subsidiary OfficeMax, from 2009 until November 2016 misrepresented the state of consumers' computers by using a sales tool designed to convince people to pay for diagnostic and repair services.
"In numerous instances throughout this time period, Defendants used the PC Health Check Program to report to Office Depot Companies customers that the scan had found or identified 'Malware Symptoms' when it had not done so," the complaint stated. "Additionally, in numerous instances, the PC Health Check Program falsely reported to consumers that the program had found 'infections' on the consumer's computer." According to the watchdog's complaint, the PC Health Check Program was incapable of finding malware. Support.com allegedly programmed the software so that whenever an Office Depot Company employee checked any one of four checkboxes describing a generic concern, like slowness, before the scan started, the scan would automatically report the detection of malware symptoms, and for a time, infections.
"In numerous instances throughout this time period, Defendants used the PC Health Check Program to report to Office Depot Companies customers that the scan had found or identified 'Malware Symptoms' when it had not done so," the complaint stated. "Additionally, in numerous instances, the PC Health Check Program falsely reported to consumers that the program had found 'infections' on the consumer's computer." According to the watchdog's complaint, the PC Health Check Program was incapable of finding malware. Support.com allegedly programmed the software so that whenever an Office Depot Company employee checked any one of four checkboxes describing a generic concern, like slowness, before the scan started, the scan would automatically report the detection of malware symptoms, and for a time, infections.
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What OS doesn't allow me to run software that goes "uh-oh, the sky is falling, you better cough up really mucho dineros to my maker to make it stay afloat!"?
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Yes, we should also demand they pay for all of the malware they the allowed to infect their system right (although apparently not in these instances!)? The OS vendor doesn't control what is written for their system outside of, here is the system APIs, do what you will. Apple and Linux can have the same things done to them. Anyone running Linux would likely say, 'eh, if true I'll fix it myself.' and Apple users are already getting scammed by the markup they pay for that hardware...
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If they've "settled" then they obviously made a lot more than 35 million.
I bet the people behind it still made money when they should really be stripped of assets and pilloried in a public place.
MANY examples of insufficient management. (Score:2)
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It's more greed than anything else, corporations are gonna corporate as long as there are share holding investors that have a vote.
Office Depot and Boeing have damaged reputations. (Score:2)
"Greed" is poor management. You gave examples that are due to insufficient management.
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Given a plane is orders of magnitude more complex than a car, not really sure your strawman is going to hold up well.
Re: MANY examples of insufficient management. (Score:1)
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We've seen it for a long time, these are just the most recent examples of it. I've respected many of these engineering companies for years, but truth be told their upper management is no different than the other industries' executives. I question what unscrupulous developer/person put the tool together knowing damn well it could not even detect malware. It is probably some basic as hell WCF, but anyone doing it knew how unethical their actions were. It's just like whoever developed the emissions cheat s
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I like my job too, but if they ask me to do something unethical I don't care if I get fired on the spot, not happening.
You can say that for yourself, but you cannot say that for other people.
My suggestion would be that we change the "whistle blower" laws... right now whistle blowers are merely protected for disclosing illegal activity ordered by management, or that management is aware of --- the laws should change so that a whistleblower is not merely protected but actually rewarded - A minimum fi
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If I understand correctly, in the United States, whistleblowers can share in the proceeds from the government's case against the company, at least in cases relating to bribery, defrauding the government, and securities-related crimes.
The Special Hell (Score:5, Insightful)
I have never worked for any of these companies (and thank the Universe for that small favor!) but I have like many of you of course 'helped' people I know who are not tech-savvy with computer problems. With power comes responsibility. Taking advantage of people who do not have the knowledge or ability to take care of themselves is just plain evil. I hope that one of the outcomes of this is that Office Depot and this support.com get such a bad reputation because of this that no one trusts them ever again. Probably won't happen but I can hope.
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I'm fairly sure you can tell all of us how to fix the power steering in your car and what you have to pay attention to when welding a leak in your gas line, right? You would never use something you can't keep in good repair yourself, after all.
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Glad to see there's someone else like this out there, too.
When something breaks in my house, the first thing I think is "What do I need to do to fix this?"
It never crosses my mind to call someone to fix my dishwasher, stove, the blower on my furnace, or, as the GP said, the power steering on my car.
It saves untold amounts of money when you know how to fix things yourself.
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Nowhere did I say that anybody shouldn't use a computer unless they knew how to fix it.
Nowhere did I say that people who don't know how to fix something deserve to be swindled by unscrupulous dirtbags.
I realize that was stated earlier in the thread, but I wasn't responding to that. I was simply making an aside comment about someone else who seems to be capable of fixing any piece of equipment that they may own or use.
That kind of expertise is incredibly rare in today's world, enough that sometimes I think
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While I subscribe to a lot of that school of thought (i.e. I love learning to work on stuff and being able to do things myself) there are two flaws. One, time. I know how to do a whole lot of stuff, but the time it takes me to do it can often be better spent elsewhere. I know how to mow my yard just fine for instance, but it is nothing more than a chore in my eyes hence why I pay someone to do that for me. Another example is I have firesticks throughout my house with, we will say special software, loade
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When you do your own appendectomy, we want pictures.
BTW, what are you going to kill and butcher for your dinner tonight?
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I'm fairly sure you can tell all of us how to fix the power steering in your car and what you have to pay attention to when welding a leak in your gas line, right?
LOL, welding a leak in your gas line. Who does this? You replace the piece of pipe. If it's the municipal gas connection, the gas company is responsible for welding that up. But the 3/4" pipe into my house? Why would I weld that? It would cost more than replacing it.
As for the power steering, do you want to know about replacing parts, or rebuilding them? Rebuilding the rack is usually a stupid idea, but the pump can often be rebuilt trivially enough.
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Pump? Are you still using 20th century hydraulic technology for your power steering? My cars have had electric power steering since 2003.
My car is from 1982, and depends on zero computers to function. The closest thing it needs to function, and even then only to start, is the glow plug timer - which could reasonably be replaced by a manual switch.
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That's like saying someone who can't adequately determine who is committing fraud that they should not be allowed to use money. Computers are a fact of life, and everyone is going to use them whether or not they can detect who is a scammer. A crime is a crime, even if the victim is more gullible than average.
Since scams like that have affected my mother, resulting in financial loss and time consuming fixes, I would not mind seeing very serious punishments meted out even to these mainstream companies who c
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So, how many complete engine rebuilds have you done? Ever built a house?
How many chips have you fabbed? Did you cut and polish the wafer yourself? Did you cut your own car keys? Did you sew your clothes and cobble your shoes?
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"Taking advantage of people who do not have the knowledge or ability to take care of themselves is just plain evil.'
Only when there's a diagnostic misrepresentation or a fraudulent representation of the diagnostic recommending unnecessary services or product without proper disclosure. Otherwise it's how 99% of all service providers earn income.
Likewise creating a product that is able to properly and accurately decide what installed extension, BHO, executable, or what have you snippet of cod
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Hey, I know, I'll write a small Python script that I'll run that throws up all sorts of bullshit malware warnings, then I'll 'fix' it for them and make big money!
This is okay with you somehow? Or do you just not understand what's going on here? They swindled people, conned them, charged them for unnecessary services based on faked test results.
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Awesome! (Score:5, Insightful)
How much of that money goes to the people who have been conned to recover their losses?
Well?
How much?
Oh, right, they're not corporations...
Re:Awesome! (Score:4, Interesting)
To settle the charges, Office Depot has agreed to pay $25m and Support.com will pay $10m. The money will be refunded to affected customers, the FTC says.
I guess all of it by the looks of things
Re:Awesome! (Score:4, Insightful)
Want to bet that to be eligible you have to jump through all sorts of hoops just to make sure that claiming the money costs more than you'll get?
I'm sorry if I come across jaded, but it's been far too many times already.
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And it will come as an Office Depot gift card.
The wirus (Score:1)
The Theranos of Software (Score:2)
Just pretend to detect things - lie and take their money
didnt GeekSquad get in trouble too (Score:2)
Re: didnt GeekSquad get in trouble too (Score:2)
Macs (Score:2)