Unfortunately, I was almost sucked into one of these scams about two years ago and it proved costly even though I caught it just in time. It started with an absolutely perfect invoice from BestBuy for an annual protection service for a laptop I had bought there four years before. The phony invoice for $199 per year even had the original purchase date and serial numbers on it. I had never asked for this service plan. When I called the number on the invoice to get the charge reversed I was speaking with a gent with a foreign voice but a very professional manner. He was well aware of every step needed to correct the unauthorized charge and genuinely helpful, but said he needed to transfer me over to the credit department to get the invoice credited. At that point something just felt wrong and I hung up and called Meredith Village Savings and was immediately connected top an outstanding fellow that does nothing but handle these types of theivery. He immediately locked down my account and as it turned out did so just before the scam attempt to get into the account arrived. I can't say enough good about MVSB and the skill of the gent who jumped right in and saved me from losing some serious cash. He did say that these types of service invoices were commonly used but it was the first time he had heard of one from BestBuy. I hand delivered a copy of the Geek Squad invoice to the bank for him so he could follow up, but I'm guessing that the scam originated from offshore and there was nothing that he could do.
The followup efforts required on his suggestion was that I open a new bank account with MVSB, re-new all of my credit cards, and have my computer completely purged and the Windows operating system re-loaded. It cost me a couple of hundred bucks and alot of wasted time, but still I feel very fortunate to have escaped so cheaply. When I was dropping my laptop off to Lakes Region Computer the woman that was writing the service order told me that they had a client in the former week that wasn't so lucky and the scammers cleaned out his savings.
If you have purchased anything from BestBuy in the last few years I would suggest contacting them and having any account records you may have with them deleted, for it would seem that their records have at some point been hacked into.
What a shame that these obviously very intelligent and skilled hackers aren't using their talents for something good.
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