Recent News

Chris here, with the AllClear ID Investigations Team. We’ve been hearing from victims of a new scam involving the website ammyy.com. This scam involves a phone call from a fake computer technician that can result in you losing your private information, money, and even access to your computer.
How the Scam Works: The customers we’ve talked to say it began with a call from somebody claiming to work for Microsoft. The caller explained that they were getting a lot of error messages from the victim’s computer, or that their computer had a virus. Luckily, the caller explained, they could fix all of the problems; all the victim had to do was download a program from  www.ammyy.com. The scammer then asked for the ID number generated by the website, which they then used to remotely access the victim’s computer, giving them the ability to tamper with the device and the all the files on it.  Scammers have even been known to ask victims for credit card information in order to charge them for the service. However, the worst of the scam comes later; after the victim has left their computer, the scammer will still have access to the computer as long as it is still on. They can then access more personal information and files that are not password protected. Once they have the information they can sell it or use it to commit fraud themselves.
Ammy.com, which is a legitimate software company, issued a warning about the scam. They said that though the majority of the scammers have claimed to be from Microsoft, others will claim to be another kind of tech support. If you receive a similar call, Ammyy advises you to hang up, stating that, “Ammyy Inc. doesn’t make these kinds of calls and never asks to download and launch Ammyy Admin.”
If you have already given your ID or credit card information to somebody over the phone, follow these steps to prevent further damage:

• Turn off your Internet connection, then turn off your computer
• Reboot your PC and run an anti-virus program (it’s possible the scammers installed malicious software)
• If your anti-virus software shows no warnings, restart your computer again, and make sure Ammyy Admin Service isn’t installed and doesn’t run in automatic mode
  • To check go to: Ammyy Admin -> Ammyy -> Service -> Remove. Then restart your PC again.
• You don’t have to uninstall the Ammyy software (if downloaded from www.ammyy.com), as it doesn’t bring any risk of data leakage or harm to your PC itself. If you decide not to use Ammyy Admin just uninstall it from your computer
• If you have become a victim of identity theft, whether it be from the Ammyy Scam or another source, call the AllClear ID team to help restore your identity