You might get $30 from the government if you were the victim of a tech support scam

Being taken for a ride by scammers isn’t fun, but getting money from the government is.

The FTC announced its latest refund program for scam victims on Tuesday. Anyone who got swindled by an outfit best known as Click4Support should get a check from the government as part of a $1.7 million settlement. The refunds will average about $30 and go out to a little less than 58,000 people.

Click4Support’s scam operation was devious, but not especially complicated. The original FTC lawsuit from 2015 accused the group of running pop-up ads that looked like they were from established tech brands designed to make credulous viewers call them for tech support. Anyone who called was routed to a call center controlled by the scammers. 

Someone falsely claiming to work for a company like Microsoft or Google would ask for remote access to the caller’s computer and then lie about nonexistent computer viruses. This, of course, resulted in people forking over “hundreds and sometimes thousands” of dollars, according to the FTC’s 2015 announcement.

Seeing as these refunds will probably average out to $30, it stands to reason some people will probably get less from the government than they gave to the scammers. The money for the refunds comes from Click4Support’s assets, in case you were wondering. 

Every now and then, the government reaches settlements with people who run scams or companies that mishandle customer data, among other things, which results in reimbursements like this. Just last year, the infamous Equifax data breach led many to believe they would each get $125 from the government for their troubles. That ended up not being the case because the settlement was split in too many directions.

Here’s hoping everyone affected by Click4Support’s scheme gets a fair payday.