Had physhing not fun

[martycon]

Soon after downloading a free trial of photo editing software I received frequent phone calls from persons purporting to be from a bank. The first wanted me to confirm my name and residential address. I hung up, (an archaic term). 6 similar calls over next 4 days all quickly terminated. This was a nuisance, but an other immediately stated the matter was about the correct amount of a funds transfer in a transaction 30mins previously. Shocked I hung up pronto. I rang the bank and the calls were not from them, so they froze all accounts till security measures were in place.
My fault, as I did not use a secure browser.

[ricktas]

Could well just be coincidence.. but you are allowed to name the editing software if you want to.

[Cage]

Unless you gave your phone # to the photo editing mob I'd say there is a good chance you have been hacked.

Do a full virus scan immediately.

[Glenda]

It's certainly getting scary - particularly for me as I know I am such a neanderthal when it comes to technology. More so nowadays where companies are basically forcing people to go digital with bills, or pay extra for paper ones. Especially seeing an imitation Origin bill someone posted recently, which certainly looked genuine, and if you used Origin would have been so easy to click on to get the details.

Glad you listened to enough of the call to realise there might be a problem and called your bank and hopefully not related to your free trial of the software. I've often trialled different softwares and hope I don't have to add that to my list of things to stop doing.

[phild]

I had a similar experience after organizing an unlock code for my partner's mobile phone. The (well known) carrier's call centre was very helpful, I was referred to their legit web site to pay a small fee for unlocking the handset to allow alternate carriers on an overseas trip. All went smoothly as expected.

Within 5 minutes of finishing the call and secure transaction I had a call from a scammer with the usual you have a virus on your computer, I'm here to help you. The caller knew my name and of course return phone number and possibly the information that I had just competed a bank transaction. I'm certain that my contact information could only have come from the carrier's call centre , I had never had one of these calls before. I tried to pass the information back to the carrier involved but found there was no easy mechanism to report the matter.

[martycon]

Rick, it is a strong correlation. The software was Topaz. A member commented that he used Topaz Sharpen, and I downloaded and used this with no problems. I was impressed and downloaded the full suite on 30 day trial. I only wanted one module, but the site kept bringing me to the full suite. Kaspersky told me that it had blocked a PUP, so I confidently and foolishly downloaded the entire suite. Soon after I did internet banking an the Phishing phone calls started. Didn't want anyone to feel bad about causing me angst.
regards marty

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Gday Kev, the reputable local Tech firm have now been running scans since Wednesday last, and found only "usual stuff", so told them to do a clean install of the OS, and I will do the rest from backups prior to my Topaz software download.
regards marty

[ameerat42]

Marty. I'm sure you would know, but in case of others... When you download something
like that, make sure of the site it's coming from - you might get what you are after - but
some have "options" ticked by default which, at best, are unwanted nuisances. I know
that one regular update always has the McAfee suite ticked for download along with it.

Some sites are less invasive/suggestive/presumptive than others like that.

[martycon]

Thanks Glenda, I am sure it is also a problem for the more computer literate. I recon the odds are over 50% that the software download was the source of the problem. A cautionary note, my security software gave notice that it had blocked a PUP (potential threat), which gave me the confidence to continue.
regards marty

[Glenda]

Must say that I have a lot of the Topaz plug ins and have never had a problem.

[martycon]

Thanks Phil, your comments cause concern. On the subject of notifications and recourse, I asked Telstra if the number of most recent incoming call on our phone could be blocked. Reply was, log the time of the calls for a week, and we will see if they meet our criteria, if they do we will write to the caller to desist, before blocking them if they continue. A good reason to go mobile.
regards marty

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Am, McAffee is a good example. I fell foul of it years ago, and it took over my security functions without asking. In my innocence I just left it there to expire.
regards marty

[ricktas]

Thanks Phil, your comments cause concern. On the subject of notifications and recourse, I asked Telstra if the number of most recent incoming call on our phone could be blocked. Reply was, log the time of the calls for a week, and we will see if they meet our criteria, if they do we will write to the caller to desist, before blocking them if they continue. A good reason to go mobile.
regards marty

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Am, McAffee is a good example. I fell foul of it years ago, and it took over my security functions without asking. In my innocence I just left it there to expire.
regards marty

Norton's is another. Often pre-installed on new computers and during start-up you are asked if you want to install it and subscribe. Even if you say NO, it still installs part of its software. A couple of years back a friend could not get their new computer to connect to the net. After much investigation, Nortons (which had been uninstalled) was actually still on the machine and running at start-up. It was blocking the internet connection.

[John King]

Norton's is another. Often pre-installed on new computers and during start-up you are asked if you want to install it and subscribe. Even if you say NO, it still installs part of its software. A couple of years back a friend could not get their new computer to connect to the net. After much investigation, Nortons (which had been uninstalled) was actually still on the machine and running at start-up. It was blocking the internet connection.

Trend Micro is another of these. I loathe it ....

[Hawthy]

Marty, you are right to be concerned and vigilant about cyber security. That said, there is only a tenuous link between downloading the Topaz suite and receiving calls from overseas scam-artists. I downloaded Topaz probably four or five years ago and didn't notice any significant difference in scam phone calls. I can't recall if I had to provide a phone number when I bought the product. If it had asked for a number I would have input 55555555.

I receive scam calls almost every night and ignore them unless I am in the mood for a bit of fun. Even that has become no fun because after talking with some of these people, I understand that they are in a position where they need to take these jobs because they are desperate. I feel sorry for them - but not sorry enough to give them access to my computer.

Going mobile will not change things. My wife receives the same calls on her mobile. You just need to be aware of the risks, manage them with a suitable anti-virus program on your PC (sorry Rick, I use Norton 360), and verify who you are talking to on the phone.

Like probably everyone on this site, I would love to rewind back to pre-internet ethics when we all spoke face-to-face and personally knew the people who sold us stuff. A handshake meant something. The convenience of being able to buy stuff on-line comes with a cost. The convenience of being able to chat with like minded people about photography is a benefit that offsets that cost. Yin and yang, I suppose.

[tandeejay]

Marty. I'm sure you would know, but in case of others... When you download something
like that, make sure of the site it's coming from - you might get what you are after - but
some have "options" ticked by default which, at best, are unwanted nuisances. I know
that one regular update always has the McAfee suite ticked for download along with it.

Some sites are less invasive/suggestive/presumptive than others like that.

Whats worse is when the pop up that has the "optional extra software" checkbox also has a line of text that says something like "not ticking this box will cause nothing to be installed"

Makes you think you need to tick the box to install the software you intended to install, but in reality, it is just poor wording possibly designed to get you to put a tick in the checkbox.

Always try and go to the original author's site to download software, but... this isn't always possible, as some software authors use 3rd party distribution houses, and it is some of these 3rd party distro houses that try and trick you into installing additional software.

Another gotcha is download pages where the download link you need to click to download the software you want is hard to find due to advertisements on the page that say "Software download" with links to download other software that you didn't want.

[piczzilla]

Marty, I'm another one of Topaz user - purchased it a few years ago, and I also didn't get any spam calls/emails. It could be just coincidence. Did you ask others in your household if they gave out any personal information on the phone/online/etc?

I had a similar experience last year when filling out an online form for a tour booking/enquiry, spam emails & calls haunted me for the next few days.

Thought I'd also share about skimming device in ATM machine (not exactly sure how this one works, so I can't say how likely it is to be the culprit)
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/commen...ential_credit/

[farmmax]

I have downloaded Topaz software for years and have never had any problems I know of. Hopefully it was not that.

The Adobe Flash updates caught me out a couple of years ago. I trusted them (stupid!) and just clicked in install button. Next minute Google Chrome appeared in my computer and started taking over everything. I hate Google Chrome and refuse to have it on the computers. I uninstalled the Adobe update, and reinstalled the update carefully reading everything. Sure enough, there was a box checked to install Chrome. To me that is not ethical behaviour. Now I religiously read everything on every screen

An Origin Energy scam email turned up in my emails a week ago. The first I've seen. We are Origin Energy customers, but I've never provided them with my email address, until I used it on their contact form when we had a power outage about a month before. Hope it was sheer co-incidence.

[ricktas]

Sounds to me that when you went searching for Topaz filters you likely ended up on a site that was not the official topaz site. So whilst it may have happened from downloading Topaz filters, it is not really related to Topaz or it's creators.

I think the warning here is to always check the web address you are visiting to make sure it is correct.

[Mark L]

Like probably everyone on this site, I would love to rewind back to pre-internet ethics when we all spoke face-to-face and personally knew the people ...

but then you wouldn't be able to see my crap photos and who's this Hawthy person?? I'm not visiting Brisbane any time soon.

[martycon]

Andrew thanks for your thoughts, and yes the advantages do outweigh the hassles of our digital life. I am slowly recovering from the kick in the guts effect of knowing that some one or thing observed and recorded the amount of my bank transaction. A clean install of my computer has been part of the therapy. Fortunately I have lost only about 10 worthwhile images.
regards marty

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PZ, I had Topaz Detail 3 with no probs, but the incident was after downloading the entire suite for free trial. During download I was informed that a PUP had been blocked, and that made me feel safe and I proceeded, Camouflage? cheers marty

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Good comment John ,thanks
cheers marty

[arthurking83]

Question:

Do you remember the site that you downloaded the trial from.

I just went to the Topaz website at topazlabs cot com, and from the very first page to the chechout page, the site comes up as secured(green lock icon in the address bar!)

So did you download it from a thirdparty website?

What browser did(do) you use?
I think there are only two out there .. M$s crappy Edge and what everyone should be using .. FireFox