The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday announced that, in connection with U.S. and international law enforcement agencies and companies, it had identified and shut down scam tech support telemarketing operations perpetrated against English-speaking computer users in the U.S., the U.K. Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, by companies located mainly in India.
The defendants are listed as follows:
Pecon Software Ltd., also doing business as Pecon Services LLC, Pecon Services, Inc.
Pecon Infotech Ltd.
Pecon Software UK Ltd.
Mahesh Kumar Shah, also known as MK Shah
Prateek Shah
Sujoy Roy
Zulfiquar Ali
Vikas Kumar Gupta
The FTC filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in New York and the court ordered the defendants’ assets frozen ($188,000 in the U.S.) and for them to immediately halt their activities. The FTC also shut down the defendants’ registered domain names.
The FTC held a press conference Wednesday and produced audio recordings of the accused scammers impersonating tech support from legitimate companies including Microsoft, Dell and McAfee, on calls with undercover law enforcement agents. The FTC accuses the defendants of billing U.S. customers fraudulent charges and bilking them out of “tens of millions” of dollars collectively and the companies have been fined in the hundreds of thousands of dollar-range by international agencies. The FTC used the occasion to call upon Congress to renew the Undertaking Spam, Spyware, And Fraud Enforcement With Enforcers Beyond Borders (U.S. SAFE WEB) Act of 2006, which expires in December 2013 and which it says was instrumental in busting the scammers.
