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Office Depot and Support.com To Pay $35 Million To Settle FTC Allegations That They Charged Users Millions in 'Fake' Malware Cleanup Fees (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the new-lows dept.

Office Depot and Support.com have coughed up $35 million after they were accused of lying to people that their PCs were infected with malware in order to charge them cleanup fees. From a report: Late Wednesday, the pair of businesses settled a lawsuit brought against them by the US Federal Trade Commission, which alleged staff at the tech duo falsely claimed software nasties were lingering on customers' computers to make a fast buck. The lawsuit, filed in southern Florida, claimed the two companies, including Office Depot subsidiary OfficeMax, from 2009 until November 2016 misrepresented the state of consumers' computers by using a sales tool designed to convince people to pay for diagnostic and repair services.

"In numerous instances throughout this time period, Defendants used the PC Health Check Program to report to Office Depot Companies customers that the scan had found or identified 'Malware Symptoms' when it had not done so," the complaint stated. "Additionally, in numerous instances, the PC Health Check Program falsely reported to consumers that the program had found 'infections' on the consumer's computer." According to the watchdog's complaint, the PC Health Check Program was incapable of finding malware. Support.com allegedly programmed the software so that whenever an Office Depot Company employee checked any one of four checkboxes describing a generic concern, like slowness, before the scan started, the scan would automatically report the detection of malware symptoms, and for a time, infections.

7 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. The Special Hell by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nevermind the 'fines' and 'bad press'. There needs to be a Special Hell for people or companies that pull shit like this.
    I have never worked for any of these companies (and thank the Universe for that small favor!) but I have like many of you of course 'helped' people I know who are not tech-savvy with computer problems. With power comes responsibility. Taking advantage of people who do not have the knowledge or ability to take care of themselves is just plain evil. I hope that one of the outcomes of this is that Office Depot and this support.com get such a bad reputation because of this that no one trusts them ever again. Probably won't happen but I can hope.

  2. Re:Microsoft? by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    What OS doesn't allow me to run software that goes "uh-oh, the sky is falling, you better cough up really mucho dineros to my maker to make it stay afloat!"?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. Awesome! by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How much of that money goes to the people who have been conned to recover their losses?

    Well?

    How much?

    Oh, right, they're not corporations...

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Awesome! by Ksevio · · Score: 3, Interesting

      To settle the charges, Office Depot has agreed to pay $25m and Support.com will pay $10m. The money will be refunded to affected customers, the FTC says.

      I guess all of it by the looks of things

    2. Re:Awesome! by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Want to bet that to be eligible you have to jump through all sorts of hoops just to make sure that claiming the money costs more than you'll get?

      I'm sorry if I come across jaded, but it's been far too many times already.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Awesome! by sconeu · · Score: 2

      And it will come as an Office Depot gift card.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  4. Re:Microsoft? by Zmobie · · Score: 2

    Yes, we should also demand they pay for all of the malware they the allowed to infect their system right (although apparently not in these instances!)? The OS vendor doesn't control what is written for their system outside of, here is the system APIs, do what you will. Apple and Linux can have the same things done to them. Anyone running Linux would likely say, 'eh, if true I'll fix it myself.' and Apple users are already getting scammed by the markup they pay for that hardware...