It happens quite often, you are surfing on the web, maybe misspelling a website and accidentally going on a different website that you wanted to, e.g. gmil.com instead of gmail.com and all of a sudden your browser is locked up, plays some voice message and claims that your computer is at risk. Often it claims that your computer will be disabled and that certain information such as Facebook Logins, credit card information, email logins and photos on your computer are at risk unless you contact these cybercriminals, posing as “Microsoft certified Technicians”. Their number is marked as “official Microsoft support tollfree number”. They also state some random, useless error number or error code like #268D3 or 0xC004FC03. Sometimes, these popups freeze your computer and the computer is slow and unresponsive.

One of the prime examples of a fake popup, titled “Microsoft Security Warning” with Error #0xC004FC03

If you have encountered such a popup do not despair!

This is just a fake popup and this “Error message” is just a popup, the same technology used by online advertisements. It does not mean that your computer is at any risk or that anything is being stolen, hacked or whatever they claim will happen. These scammers, mostly located in India, are spreading these popups on the internet so that users will encounter them, get scared and call the toll-free number provided on the popup to remove this “virus” however it’s a scam!

There is no virus, no trojan, no hack! Nothing is wrong with your computer! This is all scare tactics to con you and make you believe that you need to purchase their services which often come at a hefty price: Usually, these criminals charge up to $800 for their “lifetime plan” which is not needed at all and you’ll never know what kind of shady company you’re giving your money. They can disappear at any time, leaving all their customers behind and simply start with a new brand name.

What to do now that this popup locked up the computer?

First of all, do not call and pay to these scammers or give out any personal information.

Stay calm, think about your options. If you have any relatives or friends at your place, call them over and ask for their assistance. There’s no need to be ashamed! You can also remove this scam popup by yourself.
Just perform these few easy steps:

  1. Press the following keys at the same time: CTRL, ALT, DEL:
  2. Select the last option, “Task Manager”
  3. Select the browser that you are using, Chrome, Firefox, Edge and click “End task”
  4. If that doesn’t help — restart the computer. Press and hold the power button until the PC shuts down completely.

Congratulations! You’ve just removed the popup yourself and managed to avoid getting scammed out of several hundreds of Dollars.

Usually, the issue should be resolved now. There is no virus or trojan on your system, it was just a fraudulent website, trying to pose as Microsoft.

However, if you need further assistance, the issue hasn’t been fixed, you’re getting the popup again or you have any doubt or have already been scammed, do not hesitate to contact me to get it resolved for free.

If you want to dig into this topic further, I suggest reading the official Microsoft statement regarding scams and also our forum Scammer.info, where around 17,000 users are fighting cybercriminals on a daily basis.

Click here to contact me for further help.


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