Safari-Alert ?scam?

All, I just had this same situation happen on my wife's Airbook. Very frustrating but part of our world today. I did the following based on one of the posts below:

1. Closed out of Safart

2. Restarted Safari by holding the "shift" key down during the opening process.

3. Once open, I went to the Preferences portion of Safari and disabled JavaScript.

a. Did this by going to the Security portion of the Preferences and unchecked Enable Java Script

4. Went to the Downloads folder and selected all (cmd-A) and moved everything to the trash.

5. Emptied the trash.

6. Reopened Safari with no problem.

7. Tested it by going to a known secure site with no pop-up.

8. Opened Safari Preferences again and re-enabled JavaScript.

9. Back in business.

Message and lesson for my wife, remember when you go to any sites that do not look right, have multiple pop-ups that may interfere with clicking on what you want of in general just not having good internet security practices, one will obtain something that is not good. So to all my Mac family, we are not immune to issues that present a negative outcome. I suspect this is because of the popularity of Mac and that we do have a very good and robust system. So persons want to exploit those challenges. Good luck and good surfing..

This is a scam. They use different phone numbers but it is still the scam people.

Tonight I got so fed up with them, I called, played along for a while, and then gave them a piece of my mind, telling them they were low life scammers and that they should get real jobs instead of p!ss!ng people off.

Yes you are correct this is a scam. This and the other adwares are scams especially when it relates to this situation. I finally had to take the course of going into various areas of the computer manually and get rid of the darn thing. I never did get an answer on the phone thank goodness.

Thanks for your post and again, I agree it is a worthless SCAM!!

Yesterday I was on my MACBook Pro when all of a sudden it locked up and I got the "window" that some people are talking about. It is a scam and this company was the one who froze my Safari and then wanted $$$ to unfreeze it. The number did not look correct to me for Apple so I would not let them do anything especially that I am sure they were about to ask to for my Credit Card number. I called Apple and they helped me unlock Safari and and then sure that my Computer was not infected with a malware.

My daughter had this problem tonight. She had removed Avast off her Air (13" Mid 2012 model(1.8Ghz I5)) not knowing what it was.

She is running Yosemite 10.10.1

The pop up window basically locks you out of changing any settings in Safari. The only option that seems to be available is to close it or call them.

So I did the following:

Using a flash drive I installed Avast back onto the machine and began a Full System Scan. With Avast running in the background I did the following:

Closed Safari (I was able to just use Command + Q)

Disconnected from the wifi

While holding the 'shift' key, I click the Safari icon in the dock to relaunch it

Once that opened I was able to was able to get into the Preferences

In the Privacy Tab I removed all the websites data twice. As it came right back the first time. The second time it was removed.

It also disables the pop up blocker, which I turned back on in the Security Tab.

Once I did these steps I was able to get it to stop.

What a pain in the butt.

Thanks for the help stevejobsfan0123

So I had two clients with this issue today.

First, I believe it is the result of a page asking to install a 'media player'

Next, It doesn't seem to actually install software, it's just that the browser window is still open, and you can't close it.

With that in mind, I followed the steps outlined to get back to the "Clear History.." dialog, and _only_ checked "Close all Safari Windows". This seems to have cleared the issue.

Hello,

Perhaps this may help. In my home we also had this experience. After determining it was a SCAM I did the following:

clear history and website data

- remove extensions

- close safari

- open Finder / click on GO in menu bar

- click on COMPUTER

- click on MAC HD

- click on LIBRARY

- empty CACHES, LAUNCH AGENTS, LAUNCH DAMAONS

- click on GO again

- hold down OPTION key

- click on LIBRARY

- move SAFARI folder to desktop

- open PREFERENCES folder

- move com.apple.safari.plists to trash

- RESTART

- move SAFARI folder to trash

- empty trash

- hold down left SHIFT key when opening SAFARI the first time

- Reset Homepage

Hopefully this will help. It has worked fine since I've done this. Good luck

samer.mozannar wrote:

I did take it off after that because the program keep popping up for donations when i start my Mac. but after i removed it. All good.

I've never seen AdwareMedic do that. When you launch the program, it may ask for a donation, but not every time you start up your Mac. Maybe it was in your login items. You can always check the box that says "I already donated," which even if it isn't true, is the equivalent of "don't ask again."

That said, there's no problem in removing it, as you shouldn't need to constantly run it and do scans unless you're actually experiencing adware symptoms.

Hi all,

there is a great answer in the thread but I thought I would post it again here for convenience. These are scams- mine was an 877-899 number. Adware Medic did not correct it. I read further and then read and was reminded about the easy way through this. Force-Quit Safari with Command-Option-Escape, the select Safari and force-quit. Hold down the shift key and start Safari- bingo that should do it. Just as a precaution, I went back into preferences and found an "error 409" cookie that was part of the error message I received when the problem occurred and I removed it.

Things are back to normal.

If it doesn't work for you at least it only took about 60 seconds to try. Good luck and pox on the scammers.

kirk

AdwareMedic didn't solve the issue because the pop-up is not adware. However, you may want to look into ScamZapper, a free extension designed specifically for this kind of pop-up.

(Note that I am affiliated with that site, and some pages contain ads).

I had a similar message pop up while on my Mac, regarding Apple Alert/Security. The phone number listed was 1-855-482-2632, I spoke with a "Marcus" who said it'd cost $100 to clear up issues with my system. I didn't give out any information, but he did seem to get annoyed when I told him I'd wait until my husband was home to take care of the computer. Closing the alert box was impossible, as quickly as I'd click ok, I couldn't click the close button for Safari. Heads up to others out there. I wish Apple would address these concerns, and incidents.

THIS IS THE SIMPLE FIX- TRY THIS FIRST- I WISH THIS POST WOULD STAY ON TOP

Use "Force-Quit" to force quit Safari: Command-Option-Escape, the select Safari and force-quit. Then hold down the shift key and start Safari- bingo safari starts without the adware and you can go in and change your preferences- that should do it. Just as a precaution, I went back into preferences and found an "error 409" cookie that was part of the error message I received when the problem occurred and I removed it.

Things are back to normal.

If it doesn't work for you at least it only took about 60 seconds to try. Good luck and pox on the scammers.

kirk

Hi, you seem very knowledgeable so I thought I'd ask you...

I received this same scam yesterday when I tried to close a pop up telling me to download a media player. I am new to the mac world so being the naive person I am, I called the "ssupport" number. He did show me how to fix the pop up by force quitting and the holding the shift key to reopen. But after that he told me to go to a website I think it was "rescue my mac" something along those lines and then gave me a 6 digit code. He then had access to my computer and started showing me all these scripts explaining my computer was hacked and needed a security software. Right before he asked me for my credit card number my boyfriend came in and saved the day and basically hung up the phone.

Anyways my question is... since I gave him access to my computer, is there something I should be worried about now? Can he do anything with my ip address?

I don't believe he downloaded any software, but I've shut my computer off and haven't turned it back on in fear. Luckily I just got this computer a week ago so there is hardly anything on it. And I didn't give him any personal info.

Had the same pop up today after visiting a local business's website. Could tell right away it was a scam when I had the guy on the phone. Since they ask people to call in, I was thinking a robo-dialer would be awesome to jam their phone system. Anyone have a recommendation for a favorite dialer service?

I encountered this issue and was so frustrated with it I wrote up a post on my blog about it which can be read here: http://20dots.com/posts/safari-javascript-pop-up-scam. I had tons of tabs open I didn't want to lose so I figured out a solution.