Scammer That Tricked People Into Thinking It Was Big Company Tech Support Shuts After State Suit

A Washington state lawsuit shut down a tech support scam from India, said state Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) Thursday. Last summer, King County Superior Court entered $6.3 million in judgments against iYogi India and its U.S. subsidiary. U.S. president Vishal Dhar agreed to cease illegal practices in Washington state. “Information obtained by the Attorney General’s Office indicates iYogi India has shed most or all of its employees and is largely defunct,” it said. “The company’s U.S.-based operation appears to have shut down entirely.” The AG office said it’s deciding how to collect payment from iYogi’s U.S. and Indian entities, and later will determine a process for returning recovered restitution to consumers. The Indian company allegedly deceived consumers into believing it was part of companies like Apple, Microsoft, Norton and other big hardware and software companies to gain access to their computers. The company apparently used proprietary software to misidentify “infected files” to persuade consumers to buy iYogi support plans and antivirus software. Microsoft partners with local authorities to fight such scams and applauds the result of the suit, said Microsoft Assistant General Counsel-Digital Crimes Unit Courtney Gregoire. Since 2015, the Microsoft unit “received more than 300,000 customer reports about tech support scams carried out by fraudsters claiming to be from a reputable tech company,” she said.