Former Vice President Of South Florida Tech Support Scam Sentenced To Ten and A Half Years In Prison

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdil/pr/former-vice-president-south-florida-tech-support-scam-sentenced-ten-and-half-years

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Southern District of Illinois

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, October 11, 2019

Former Vice President Of South Florida Tech Support Scam Sentenced To Ten and A Half Years In Prison

The former vice president and sales manager of a fraudulent tech support business known as Client
Care Experts, LLC (CCE) will be spending the next 10½ years in federal prison, U.S. Attorney Steven
D. Weinhoeft announced today. Grant Clark Wasik, 36, of Oakland Park, Florida, was sentenced
yesterday in federal district court in East St. Louis, Illinois, to 125 months in prison for
conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The court also ordered Wasik to pay over $10.5 million in
restitution to the victims of the fraud scheme.

Wasik was the vice president and sales manager of CCE, formerly known as First Choice Tech Support,
which was based in Boynton Beach, Florida. The company also operated a similar tech support
business called ABC Repair Tech (ABC), located in Costa Rica.

According to court documents, the defendants purchased pop-up advertisements that would appear
suddenly on a person’s computer screen. The pop-ups were made to look like system warnings and
falsely informed the victims that serious problems, such as viruses or malware, had been detected
on their computers. Often, the pop-ups caused the person’s internet browser to freeze up and stop
responding. The pop-ups also typically warned the victims not to shut down their computers or else
they would lose all their data. Instead, the ads directed them to call a toll-free number, where
they were connected to sales representatives who continued the fraud.

The sales representatives would convince the victims to grant them remote access to their
computers, where normal computer functions and routine processes were highlighted as evidence of
serious computer problems. Victims were never told that the pop-ups that had hijacked their
computers were just advertisements purchased by the tech support company, or that in most instances
they could make the pop-ups go away simply by rebooting their computers. Instead, they were sold
remote “tune-ups” for $250 and anti-virus protection software for another $400. If victims balked
at the steep prices, the sales representatives would offer them a discount for being
a senior citizen or a military veteran or something else.

From 2013-2016, the two companies – CCE and ABC – combined to defraud more than 40,000 people.
Victims were located in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, several
U.S. territories, all 10 Canadian provinces, the United Kingdom, and several other foreign
countries. At least 57 victims of the scams were residents of the Southern District of Illinois,
representing 22 of the district’s 38 counties, including St. Clair and Madison. All told, the two
companies took in over $25 million.
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