Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (WPMT) — Kathy Shirk of Neffsville considers herself to be pretty computer savvy.
However, she says she was a victim of a tech support scam.
Now, she wants to warn people that it can happen to you.
“We are so sorry to let you know mam our company is going out of business, that’s the reason why we’re calling you in relation to giving your refund money back.”
That`s part of the voicemail Shirk received from a number with a new york area code.
The caller claims to be from V2all technologies.
A company, that Shirk says, fixed her laptop computer for $400 a year ago when she kept getting pop ups.
“I thought it was kind of refreshing that somebody that was going out of business that you had a service agreement with was willing to refund part, as least part, of what you paid.”
This is the agreement Shirk had with V2ALL Technologies signed a year ago.
She paid $400 through PayPal and says she never had an issue.
So when she got the voicemail, she thought it seemed legitimate.
“It’s not that I was trying to be greedy when I did this, I just thought it was something that they were legitimately doing.”
Shirk called the number that left her a voicemail and talked to a man.
She says the man told her she needed to share her computer screen, so he could have access to return the money and delete an old program.
“He said about going into my bank account and I kind of that thought that was odd, but when we did the agreement, we did go into the bank account at that time.”
Then, shirk says, something didn`t seem right.
“I saw him trying to move money from one savings account to another.”
She says the caller had a quick answer.
“Why are you talking about $2,000 when you’re only refunding me $400? He said that’s because this is what Chase bank has allowed us for refunds.”
According to Shirk, the caller said she would just have to go to a Walmart and send the additional $1,600 back.
“And I said no I won’t and he said yes you will and I said no sir I will not. Then he said, I don’t trust you, I’ve worked with people like you before and I don’t trust you. And I said, dude I can tell you I don’t trust you.”
After that, shirk says the person on the phone became aggressive and threatened to wipe out her bank account.
“At which time I hit the button on my computer, I shut it down and I hung up the phone.”
The Lancaster County woman changed all her passwords for her banking and computer.
She also called police.
Shirk says there is no money missing from her account, which she thinks is because she shut the computer down before the caller could take any.
We tried to call the number she called and got a disconnected signal.
We also went to the website listed and a security warning popped up.
What shirk went through with the caller, is was the FTC calls a tech support scam.
It`s nothing new and scammers are always finding new ways to trick you.
The feds have been filing lawsuits against fake companies for years, however, V2ALL Technologies has never been listed in a lawsuit.
While shirk says she`s a little embarrassed, she`s also glad she trusted her gut before she lost her money.
“I didn’t think it would happen to me, but it did. I need people to know, I want people to know to be careful, to be wise.”
I also called the phone number that is listed for V2ALL technologies, which is different from the one that was left on Kathy Shirk’s voicemail.
The person who answered assured me that V2ALL technologies is a real company and any sort of scam is just a rumor.
We also looked the company up on the better business bureau and rip off report, nothing was listed.
