According to a Microsoft, the last 2 years have seen a decline in successful tech support scams worldwide, as users seem to be a little better at recognizing and avoiding them. In contrast, the United Kingdom has seen a slight increase in tech support scam victims.
Microsoft of these scams compared to previous years. The results showed that 63% of users encountered at least one tech support scam, down from 68% in 2016. Those who lost money this way dropped to 3% of the total, compared to 6% two years ago.
However, regardless of the 3% who lost money from the scams themselves, 8% reported that they lost time and money to check them and to «clean their computer of malicious programs», while 78% of respondents said they became anxious as a result of the fraud.
The research claims that an important role has been played by the fact that pop-up ads have been reduced, which often displayed misleading messages, causing the user to believe that it was an official Microsoft page.
38% of users said that if they were contacted by phone by such a company (tech support) they would block the number, and that if they actually had a problem with their system, they would search for it themselves online.
Finally, while all countries appear to have reduced the rates of tech support scams compared to 2016, the United Kingdom has recorded an increase. 62% of respondents said they have fallen victim to such a scam, while 6% said they lost some amount of money, a rate that rose from 2% in 2016.
