A federal court in Florida has temporarily shut down two “massive” telemarketing operations that allegedly conned tens of thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars by tricking them into fixing nonexistent computer errors, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said.

The tech support operations generated more than $120 million since 2012 by using software designed to trick computer users into thinking their PCs had performance or security problems, the FTC alleged. Computer users typically downloaded a free trial version of software that supposedly scanned their systems, then identified numerous errors, even when the computers didn’t have performance problems, the FTC and Florida authorities alleged.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

…