annoying popups come from nowhere

[surfunbear]

I upgraded to win antivirus pro 2006 from last year.
I get these popups that are not associated with any web site
as they can happen when there is no Internet explorer active.
they say my registry is corrupted and to go to some bogus website to
fix it.
I used to have them before but the old antivirus stopped them.
I'd like to write a perl script or something to kill them.
If I open task manager under applications it lists the popup
as "messenger service". Here is my processes, do any of these
look suspicious ? How can I kill these popups ?


PID TIME COMMAND
0 1:01 Idle
8 0:28 System
136 0:03 smss
160 0:23 csrss
156 0:10 winlogon
208 0:09 services
220 0:03 lsass
400 0:01 svchost
444 0:00 spoolsv
476 0:04 svchost
516 0:00 regsvc
532 0:00 MSTask
560 0:39 WinMgmt
848 56:27 winav
820 0:00 ymsgr_tray
640 0:00 FWSvc
1048 0:00 cmd
988 0:15 Explorer
1072 0:00 Updater
1152 0:00 ps
632 0:00 ntps
0 59:51 _Total

 

[John John]

It's Win Antivirus! A known malware, it probably told you to uninstall
other legitimate Anti-Virus software when you installed it, didn't it?
Go in Control Panel Add/Remove Programs and remeove it. Also, the
presence of regsvc is highly suspicious as this service is a Windows
Server family process, on any other platform it is most certainly
associated with malware. The folks at Tom Coyote may be able to help
you getting rid of these pests. Go here and read/follow any
instructions given: http://www.tomcoyote.org/

John

 

[surfunbear]

Thanks so much, I don't know how that got on my system, I was trying to
install norton and somehow a window for that must have poped up,
it seems pretty sneaky and I thought I had symantec installed. I feel
kind of stupid.

I saw someone else had a similar problem from a newsgroup
post but that person was a lawyer and go their money back. I got
charged
$ 47.31 on my credit card which shows singapore on the statement.
Anyway I could recover my money ?

 

[John John]

You're not the first (or the last!) to be taken for a ride by these
despicable outfits! Their tactics are always evolving and are always
devised to trick and deceive. You can call your credit card company and
see if they will accept to reverse the charges.

John

 

[surfunbear]

Thanks,

I called my credit card company and I can submit a dispute, however
I'm not sure what will happen. How can I prove that win antivirus is a
scam ? Is there a web site or
way to document this ? years ago I was charged something like $300 for
a payphone
call in mexico for 10 or 15 minutes of phone use, an exhorbitant fee
which they let me dispute, but in the end I had to pay it so I'm not
sure what the dispute will help with.

Are there government agencies or consumer protection groups that I
could contact etc ?

 

[John John]

I don't know, this might be one of these things to chalk up to
experience and in the future be more careful when buying online. There
are all kinds of scams out there, it's buyer beware. Other than that
you will have to do your research and see where it leads. Search for
"WinAntiVirus scam" and it may lead to something useful.

John

 

[Guest]

Hi Surfunbear...

The worst thing that can happen is you don't get a refund; the best thing is
(a) you do if you ask for it from your credit card company and (b) the bogus
company will eventually be put out of biz...hopefully...if enough people take
action, like you! If you don't ask, the answer's always "no", right? Credit
card co's are pretty savvy...show them the website where you d/l the program;
show them the charge to a phone in a foreign company and I bet they'll take
care of it -- it's not like you're trying to get a $10K refund or anything,
right?

Good luck, Katrina

 

[surfunbear]

I let it go too long so it's past the date I had to file a complaint,
however
I installed norton 2006, but I still get the pop ups I had problems
with.
Norton found several viruses on a full scan, but the pop ups have not
gone away.
I am running an old PC, I'm not even sure if norton is helping slow it
down, but some things are taking a very long time to run. I'd like to
know if I could write my own pop up killer in perl for these particular
pop ups or if I should try to kill that regsvc mentioned previously. I
have been thinking of getting a newer laptop.


I have a 60 day download period for norton, why do that do that if you
buy it online ?