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The victim is understandably upset that Revolut will not refund her despite acknowledging that it would require technical expertise that can't be expected of a normal customer to avoid being scammed in this way.Īnother was given no specifics and was simply told in the bank's formal response that it would not refund the £12,000 fraud losses because 'after our agents from the relevant team analyzed your case, it seems like they could not find a way to further assist you with this.' A genuine chat adviser admitted to one victim that “the only reason why I would question these emails is because I am an engineer in electronics”. In some cases, scammers sent fake emails that appeared to come from Revolut. One was told by a chat adviser 'we have concluded that your decision to give the alleged fraudsters remote access to your device means that your request falls into a category in which we cannot assist and therefore we will be unable to refund you'. While Revolut has reimbursed at least three victims that we are aware of, others have been told they will not be refunded. Though Revolut has been aware of the Google scam ad since at least March 2020 - when Which? first reported it - its customer service agents sometimes failed to offer even basic fraud advice such as telling victims to remove the remote access tools from their devices.Īlso troubling is the seemingly random approach to Revolut's decision making. We're concerned that Revolut was slow to give these victims a final response about reimbursement - many told us they felt like they were left hanging via the app chat and several were repeatedly asked for information they had already provided. Since May, Which? has been contacted by 17 victims of this specific scam.

#Anydesk remote scam software#

Find out more: on the phone to tech support scammers - we allowed an alleged scam support company access to our PC to learn how they persuade victims about made-up computer problemsĪs we reported in September, multiple Revolut customers were recently scammed after a fake Google advert resurfaced.Īll of them phoned the customer service number provided and were connected to scammers posing as Revolut staff before being tricked into downloading remote access software in the belief that they were talking to the e-money firm.

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Once they have access, they may put up a fake screen and work in the background to download other software or steal passwords and other personal data.īased on reports to Which?, TeamViewer is the brand of remote access software reported as being misused by scammers most often, although others include AnyDesk, LogMeIn and GoToAssist.

#Anydesk remote scam code#

Other scammers are sneakier still, directing you to websites where clicking on the various brand names downloads the software, although they would still need you to enter a code to connect to your device. Typically, you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from a known company (commonly impersonated firms include Amazon, BT and Microsoft), in which they try to convince you to grant them access to your device, claiming they will fix a spurious problem.Īction Fraud recently reported that an Amazon Prime scam involving remote access software has cost victims over £400,000 in two months. A simple passcode will then connect the two devices.Īlthough many legitimate businesses use this technology, including the Which? Tech Support team, criminals also use it for nefarious purposes. Remote access software enables you to use one device to access another from any location by downloading a smartphone app or installing a program on your computer. Your data will be processed in accordance with our Privacy policy

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Yet the use of remote access software is not very well known - our survey of the general public in September 2020 found that four in 10 people have never heard of it, even though we had explained how these tools are misused by scammers to gain access to devices. At a more granular level, Action Fraud says that it has received14,893 'computer software service fraud' reports between October 2019 and September 2020, with reported losses reaching around £16.5 million over that period. Impersonation fraud shot up by 84% in the first half of 2020, with almost 15,000 reports and £58m lost, according to UK Finance. Her bank eventually agreed to refund the money but other victims of remote access fraud have been told their banks will not cover losses if they give access to their devices. One of the worst cases we came across resulted in a Which? member losing £80,000 after a 'BT engineer' phoned about service problems in the area. Scammers posing as IT departments, telecoms providers and banks are tricking victims into relinquishing control of their devices to hack into their accounts and steal sensitive data.