14 DAY TRIAL // Did you think that tech support scammers couldn’t be brought to justice? Authorities in the United Kingdom have demonstrated that they’ve started cracking down on such fraud schemes. A 34-year-old man has been sentenced to 4 months in prison for running such an operation.
Mohammed Khalid Jamil has also been sentenced to 12 months of supervised release, fined £5,000 ($8,324 / €6,033), and ordered to pay £5,665 ($9,427 / €6,842) in compensation to 41 victims, and £13,929 ($23,180 / €16,807) in prosecution costs.
Jamil operated a company called Smart Support Guys, which he used to trick a large number of UK users into handing over their money by claiming to offer computer repair services.
The man and the people working for him falsely claimed to be Microsoft certified engineers, or they purported to work for a company working for Microsoft. In reality, they didn’t have anything to do with Microsoft.
Jamil’s employees, Indian call center operators, tricked people into thinking that their computers had serious problems. They often removed security solutions and left the devices in a worse state than they were before they “fixed” them.
Victims, many of which senior citizens, were asked to pay between £35 ($58 / €42) and £150 ($250 / €180) for the so-called repairs.
The mastermind of the scheme pleaded guilty to unfair trading by allowing his staff to make false claims regarding computer support services. He admitted failing to control and properly supervise call center staff.
It’s worth noting that Smart Support Guys was not the first tech support company operated by Jamil. In 2010, he operated a similar firm named Online PC Masters, which received warnings from trading standards officers for its conduct.
“This is a landmark case, as we believe it may be the first ever successful prosecution of someone involved in the Microsoft scam in the UK. It’s an important turning point for UK consumers who have been plagued by this scam, or variants of it, for several years,” noted Lord Toby Harris, chairman of the National Trading Standards Board.
“Many have succumbed to it, parting with significant sums of money, their computers have been compromised and their personal details have been put at risk. Now that one of the many individuals who’ve been operating this scam has been brought to justice, it’s a stark warning to anyone else still doing it, that they can be caught and will be prosecuted.”