Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

Microsoft Corp. sued a company it accuses of using its name to scam customers into buying hundreds of dollars in support services to fix nonexistent bugs, then stealing personal information or installing malicious software.

In a complaint today in federal court in Los Angeles, the software maker accuses Omni Tech Support, a division of Customer Focus Services, of unfair and deceptive business practices and trademark infringement. Microsoft said in a blog post it has received 65,000 complaints about this type of scam since May.

Microsoft accuses the firm of claiming to work for the software giant, then in some cases gaining remote access to a customer’s computer and installing malware, including a program to grab private passwords. Senior citizens are a frequent target, according to the blog post by senior attorney Courtney Gregoire, who oversees Microsoft’s work on digital crimes against what it considers vulnerable populations.

“We’ve reviewed the allegations, we strongly deny all of them and we will fight this vigorously,” Customer Focus Services Chief Executive Officer Marc Haberman said in a phone interview.

Omni Tech is based in Los Angeles and was founded in 2000, according to the company’s website. The site says the company has “hundreds of Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers figuring amongst” its technicians.

The case is Microsoft Corp. v. Customer Focus Services LLC, 14-cv-09667, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).