Advanced Tech Support

I contacted the Microsoft web page on 9/9/16 looking for a way to upgrade the drivers on my computer as it was booting up very slow. That web site directed me to Advanced Tech Support in Coral Gables, Florida. The person who answered the phone (Gus by name) did a diagnostic test on my desk PC and concluded that my PC needed a full system “tune up”. He told me that I had 158 unwanted programs on my hard drive. At that time my computer was fully operational, though slow to boot up. When I asked he told me that they are not affiliated with Microsoft but they do a lot of repair work for them. He also convinced me that their technicians could do the job $100 cheaper than Best Buys. The said their charge would be $269.99 and would take about 5 hours. He also recommended that I needed PANDA anti-virus protection even though I still had 3 months left on my subscription to NORTON 360. That would cost another $149.00.

He said they would make use of the Driver upgrades that I purchased from PayPro.

I agreed to those charges and allowed my PC to be turned over to their “superior” technical support person. That was the last time I was able to access my computer. They started working on it on 9/9/2016 and I fired them on 9/22/2016. Most of those days, such as:

9/9/16 2:30 pm to 9:30 pm

9/19/16 10:00 am to 12:40 am

9/21/16 1:20 pm to 11:00 pm

9/22/16 9:00 am to 12:15 pm

I was sitting in front of my computer following their instructions, doing the work I was paying them to do. I know of at least eight (8) persons who worked on my computer, in cyber neverland, during those 13 days…….changing, changing and re-changing the computer codes. People named Darren, John, Kevin, Daniel, Chrystal, Mathew Odain and Kevoy.

The conclusion was that when they upgraded the drivers on 9/9/16, the driver for the mouse and keyboard were deleted and my PC was not compatible with the new drivers purchased from SafeCart. Since I could not find the original Windows 7 disk, the only solution was to take the program off and install Windows Vista Ultimate with that program’s drivers. Once that was done all I would have to do is re-install all my programs, contacts, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, pictures, etc. A living *** for sure………..only after 13 days of repeated shutdowns and restarts, test runs, endless scans, etc. today I was informed the hard drive has failed. My computer (Dell XPS 360i) which cost me over $2,000 and which Gus assured me should last many more years because it had 4096 MB of memory, 800 MHZ speed, and a 2.83 GHz processor is now trash. I had to buy another computer today.

Not only will I not pay them anything, I wish I could collect some money for my new computer and for the countless hours I spent doing their work at my house.

From a customer who realized this was scam before I lost any of my hard earned money.

It's quite obvious that after reading all these posts for the last few weeks that the employees and management of ATS are clueless. So let me enlighten all of you that can't, write or speak correctly due to a severe lack of education.

The court and judge ruled that ATS did, in fact, deceive it's customers. The court ruled in favor of the FTC and agree that a preliminary injunction should be granted but a limited one as the case PROCEEDS.

For those of you who do not understand that, this means that all of the hundreds of millions of dollars that the company earned over the years has been earned by deceiving people. It's quite obvious that if your company did not deceive people at the start of every call that it would never have earned a dime. Your sales people would not have been earning thousands of dollars every month. The owners would not have made all the money they have.

None of the income from selling tech support services, upgraded software etc would have been earned if it was not for the initial deceiving of the customer on the phone call explaining all the "problems" they had.

Keep this in mind for a few moments.

Quote from judges ruling - "With these principles in mind, and after carefully reviewing the pleadings, declarations,

evidence, and testimony of witnesses, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs have established at least a likelihood of success on the merits against both the PC Cleaner Defendants and the ICE Defendants"

This basically means that the FTC will likely succeed as the case proceeds. NOTE to ATS employees - The case is not over.

In a nut shell, the judge has allowed ATS to reopen its doors while the case proceeds.

The judge also ordered funds to be put aside for paying back customers for RESTITUTION. The judge was being kind so your company could function while it waits to be crushed in the future.

I can assure you the FTC will proceed with attempting to obtain a judgement for restitution for all ill gotten gains which could amount to almost $200,000,000 dollars over the years. At the very least they will go after all of the profits the company earned over the years. There are countless companies the FTC sued that were allowed to reopen and then later received a nice present in the mail in the form of a hundred million dollar judgement and customer restitution bill. Take a look online and you will see for yourself.

Further, the judge ordered that ATS CANNOT make false statements or mislead its customers in violation of the telemarketing sales acts going forward. They will monitor this from day one.

So have fun going back to work next week when you can't lie to the customers on the phone and tell them they have all these viruses, system problems etc when in fact they don't. Your pay checks will go from $7000 per month to $70 per month!

Oh, and bye the way, just remember the court and FTC investigators will be making secret calls again to monitor how well you guys are doing....

I suspect that your company will be open for another 6 months to a year. The FTC will win a huge judgement against ATS and force it to shut it's doors then. Even before that your company will most likely wither away and die when the owners realize they cant scam people any more and have to function as a legitimate tech support company unless they plan on being in contempt of court. Your staff will go from 1000 to 10 people sitting around waiting for calls to come in.

Good luck dealing with all the charge backs and class action law suits. I'm sure there are plenty of lawyers chomping at the bit to take on this case.

Customers will be happy to hear that ATS was SHUT DOWN by the FCC today for reasons are of course undisclosed to employees with the exception of the main guys that where arrested today, could it be that FRAUD maybe one things for sure customers will stay $600 richer the only people that suffer are the lower poll guys like your techs with families that where all sent home due to this shut down.

But guess what ATS you guys had it coming cant ROB people of their money and get away clean YOU BASTARDS HAD IT COMING!

To the employees that lost there jobs you guys are better off boys/girls.

I previously didnt have any issue with Tech support. They fixed most of the issues I had.

They deleted many unwanted files I couldn't get off. The techs were always courteous and helpful. Sometimes it was tricky to get through. But overall not too bad.

I agree the sales team was full of BS. Today I tried to get in touch but there were no operators available. I called and it said the switch board was unavailable.

Then I read here that swat closed them down.

Is that true? I want to now make sure that I get my credit card adjustment.