Buddy inc. Remotely entered iMac.

Since they never got access to your computer, I think you are OK.

I think our great friend Kappy is likely right - this type of scam is not about planting malware on your computer, but just old fashioned fraud - get you to pay them a fee fror nothing and possibly ruin you by running up other charges on your credit card or selling your valid CC# on the BlackWeb.

A good place to educate yourself on the subject of Mac Safety is ... wait for it... http://TheSafeMac.com !!! Our friend thomas_r has a lot of advice and tools.

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Just to make sure, call your credit card company and ask for a replacement card. Just in case, won't hurt to change your passwords.

And, no legitimate company works like that - they have nothing to do with Apple. They simply want your money.

This is a scam. Don't pay any attention to these callers.

-- Cancel credit card immediately.

I got two calls to fix may windows computer on Wednesday. I haven't used my Windows partition in a month.

Robert

HeatingNAir one! wrote:

Just to be clear, they did access the computer and were in moving things around.

What I'm unclear on is this: did she initiate the call, and if so, was she intending to call this "Buddy, Inc" company? Or did they cold-call her with some scary story about a virus or some other nonsense, or did she call a number that she thought was for Apple's own tech support?

If the former, this may not be a problem. It's unlikely that a legit business that was called to help with a problem would do anything malicious. Possible, certainly... but unlikely. If word got out of such behavior, their business would be ruined.

On the other hand, in the latter case, she was scammed. In this case, the remote access means that the computer should be considered compromised. It is no longer safe to use, and any data on it may have been accessed. You'll need to erase the hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch, and after you've got a clean system, change any passwords for any online accounts accessed from that computer.

For more info on how to do a "clean reinstall," see:

How to reinstall Mac OS X from scratch

(Fair disclosure: I may receive compensation from links to my sites, TheSafeMac.com and AdwareMedic.com.)

HVAC 😉

If I were given advice from thomas_r, I would consider it Gospel.

[just sayin'... visit the TheSafeMac.com and poke a round a bit and decide for yourself]

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HeatingNAir one! wrote:

The computer was not acting right and this opened up in a window muliple times.

Follow Thomas's advice, your computer is no longer safe.

There some real heavyweights advising thomas's " UNSAFE Now!! " position that you seem to be verifying with every post... Your probability of being compromised are very high.

Even though I know it is not possible... I almost want do put on a ... 🙂 " virtual Hospital Mask " just participating with this thread 🙂 ...