Victim Location 17331
Type of a scam Identity Theft
Found a deduction in my checking account from Sirius Xm that did not make sense. I called Sirius and they put me in contact with Sparx crew, LLC, 600 Glasgo Lane, Bentonville, Ar. 72712. Phone- 1-877-827-6222. I did not actually call this company, this connection was made through Sirius.
The tech, (Ross) took over my computer, and it showed a list of people who had hacked my computer.He asked for control of our computer for at least 1 to 2 hours to clean it up, and install firewall.This was a total charge of $636.00. He insisted that we pay with a money order or cashiers check. This check would be picked up by FedEx the next day by 11:00, ( April 3).
After sleeping on it, I decided to look up Sparx Crew LLC on ScamPulse.com of Arizona, and found this to be a spam.
Victim Location 80549
Type of a scam Tech Support
Our Direct TV reception was not working. My husband searched online for Direct TV customer service number. There were several, and he picked one. He then called the number and was in contact with a person who identified himself as a Direct TV rep. (provided name Jeremy & gave employee ID). "Jeremy" told my husband that the problem was that our TV system had been hacked by a dozen or more entities in Mexico. He then transferred the call to a service organization reputed to be in partnership with Direct TV. When connected to that person, my husband was directed to open his computer and give access to that person with Sparx so that they could trouble shoot the problem. During the course of the conversation, the Sparx organization said it would clean up the hack and put up a firewall on our satellite system for a cost of @$500, but for a lifetime preventative service — only $1500. The Sparx people had control of my husband’s laptop and proceeded to "clean" it, but never addressed the problems with the TV. Then they sent an invoice for $1500 via email and asked for payment via certified check or money order to be picked up by FedEx the next day.
The next morning, we received a call from a FedEx supervisor who had seen a similar situation and was concerned that this had the characteristics of a scam. We cancelled the FedEx pick up. Being suspicious of the Sparx process, we called our Geek Squad people and had them scrub our laptop. They did find an electronic marker left by Sparx that they removed, so our laptop is safe.
We then called Direct TV with the number displayed on our troubleshooter screen, and a repair man was at our home within the hour and had the problem repaired. We notified Direct TV of the online scam that had one of their customer service numbers connected people to Sparx. Direct TV informed us that there was no record of a previous call to them for repair and that they never refer repair to another tech service. Sparx has sent two reminders to pay the $1500, which we will not pay. We were lucky that we didn’t loose money or turn over control of our laptop to this organization. BE SURE TO USE THE DIRECT TV REPAIR NUMBER DISPLAYED ON THE SCREEN OF THE TV — DO NOT GO ONLINE TO FIND A CUSTOMER SERVICE/REPAIR NUMBER!!