Unremovable Spam

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Hi all,

Wondering if somebody out there can give me some ideas about the following. Once again it's my elderly mothers iMac. She lives over 100 miles away so I can't just pop down there to help.
She tells me over the phone that when she boots her iMac, the whole screen is taken over by what sounds to me like a bug or Spam. The screen tells her to contact a telephone number for help as her computer is having problems etc. Unfortunate for her she's actually phoned this number and it turns out it was in India and they wanted money to help ( as you guessed ), not sure if any of the call cost her loads of money. Problem is she can't get rid of the thing on the screen, she can't delete or go back or do anything. Any ideas how to sort this out? Went into an Apple store and they were not much help apart from saying bring it in.

Many thanks.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
late 2012 mini w/SSD
The screen tells her to contact a telephone number for help as her computer is having problems etc.

Tell her to try Adware Medic from here:
AdwareMedic

Scams like that are becoming quite common on Macs.
Unfortunately, if she allowed them access to her Mac, it should be considered "hacked" (security compromised). If she remembers what she installed or enabled, to allow them access, then maybe that can be uninstalled.
Otherwise, an erase and re-install is recommended. (of course backup her files first.)

Keep in mind that she gave them access to passwords and probably documents with account info. If it were me, I'd change bank and credit card online access passwords soon.
 
Last edited:

bobtomay

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Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Could be only a browser hijacker and she is force powering off the machine then when it restarts it is launching Safari and loading the last page.

Force quit Safari

Turn off wifi or unplug the ethernet cable

then restart Safari and close the offending tab
 

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