Do any of you remove spyware for a living?

[Nocturnal]

Like have any of you ever put an ad in the newspaper saying, "Having problems with pop-ups taking over your computer? CALL ME!"

Anyone do this? Do you need a business license, fed tax id #, etc? I want to do this and charge a flat rate for just removing spyware off people's computers. I know it's a huge mess right now, and huge market. My moms just called me to help her remove it. She said she was going to go to Comp USA and buy a program but she figured she would call me first. On Friday night I helped my gf's father with their computer. I removed about fifty viruses and a bunch of spyware. Their computer couldn't even start lol. I don't even charge family but if it were their friends I'd start charging.


Anyone do this?

 

[boomdart]

Wow...charge someone money to run Spy Sweeper, Spybot, and Spy Hunter? That's all that's needed unless their computer has been HiJacked..

 

[Zim Hosein]

Not for a living, but I ran Ad-Aware on my friends Dell laptop yesterday and it found over 250 items! :Q

 

[Platypus]

Fixing John Q. Public's computer for a fee is NOT a smart idea. Take it from a seasoned pro

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by: boomdart
Wow...charge someone money to run Spy Sweeper, Spybot, and Spy Hunter? That's all that's needed unless their computer has been HiJacked..

Isn't it truly amazing how easily it is to someone like us, who knows what is actually going on, to remove the said spyware? It's pretty crazy. Then again, I can't do a lot of stuff that trained people can do either.

 

[minendo]

"Having problems with pop-ups taking over your computer? CALL ME!"

As understood by customers:

"I will be your computer bitch. Call me anytime you are having problems and yell at me if I can't get there fast enough."

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by: minendo

"Having problems with pop-ups taking over your computer? CALL ME!"

As understood by customers:

"I will be your computer bitch. Call me anytime you are having problems and yell at me if I can't get there fast enough."

True minendo. Hehe, I was just wondering if any of you did this. I understand how it works. I'm already tech support for this entire house I live in + the house next to it as well as my mom and gf's father lol.

 

[Bulk Beef]

It's not supposed to be what I do for a living, but it sure as hell seems like it.

 

[chrisms]

Some of you claiming how easy it is have yet to experience a complete takeover. There are some instances in which all you can do is format the hard drive. Not everyone gets only the simple Tracker.exe crap going on.

 

[midnightrat]

Yeah sucks to be the resident computer guy. I'd suggest you not do it.

Besides do you really want to be liable if something funky happens.

But then again you could get one of those late night female in distress calls, and when you show up she's in a lacey teddie or something like that

hmm...

 

[TommyVercetti]

This guy does

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=1297000

 

[randomlinh]

i considered doing it for campus folk. i have to do it to an extent to fix their computers so they can connect to the network (campus job).... but i don't think the campus would be happy w/ me charging.. hehe

 

[tommigsr]

i do, i charge a hefty fee though $75/visit

 

[sandmanwake]

90% of the problems student bring in for me to fix is spyware and viruses. Since this is a "free" service provided by the university, they have no incentive to try to learn how to prevent it from happening again. If their computer slows down, gets pop up's, ect., all they have to do is drop it off for a few hours for me to fix and they can pick it up later. Normally I don't mind since it is my job, but I really hate those people who I work on their computer and they come in later saying ever since I fixed their computer <fill in blank> is now broke--ie I set up one girl's computer from scratch, spent all day searching for drivers, ect and she comes in the next day after getting it back saying her computer is really slow after I reinstalled the OS. Ran spybot and somehow she managed to get over 200 spyware in one day.

 

[sciencewhiz]

Originally posted by: Zim Hosein
Not for a living, but I ran Ad-Aware on my friends Dell laptop yesterday and it found over 250 items! :Q

I got payed $100 to remove 700+ items with ad-aware and 100+ items with spybot, and 12 viruses.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Zim Hosein
Not for a living, but I ran Ad-Aware on my friends Dell laptop yesterday and it found over 250 items! :Q

public xp machine at my school had over 2600 items in adaware 6

 

[Schadenfroh]

that gives me an idea, im gonna start charging a fee everytime you visit my spyware faq

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

I'm going to try this

WHat do I run? adaware, the spy hunter thing, what else? WHat program to remove viruses with? I'll put ad for $50 to $75 a visit, not sure how much yet

 

[PatboyX]

sometimes, for work, i do need to.
but not for a living.

 

[WannaFly]

this goes along with the 'lifetime tech support' - you remove their spyware, charge them $75 and they call you a week later complaing they have spyware or that their kazaa lite dosent work anymore. Repeat forever.

 

[duragezic]

Hey you are the man! My friend and I were thinking of the same idea. A while ago his GF was saying their computer was really messed up. So we go over there and I mean sh*t didn't work at all it was just so unresponsive we barely got go into COntrol Panel, windows explorer, etc.. nothing was working right. The internet didn't work at all. I thought it'd have to be formatted. But after trying a few tricks, deleting some garbage, killing processes, and somehow got ad-aware installed (it was so f*cked up we weren't able to intall at first..) which found a ton of items, cleared it all out, and the computer was working fine! And I personally know several others with spy-ware f*cked rigs. But as us geeks know, it's not a good idea cause when the relatives and friends find out you can fix it you become the free computer guy.

So in summary, yeah I'd like to do the same thing. A few simple programs and the stuff is removed. People are starting to get pissed that their comps are slow POS and they got 10 popups with every damn webpage LOL.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: AgaBooga
I'm going to try this

WHat do I run? adaware, the spy hunter thing, what else? WHat program to remove viruses with? I'll put ad for $50 to $75 a visit, not sure how much yet

^ bump

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

I don't do it for a living, but it's nice for a little extra money occasionally

Between me, my 128MB Lexar JumpDrive filled with Spybot, Adaware, AVG + latest definitions, and bootable OSes on CD, there is very little that doesn't get solved.

 

[DanTMWTMP]

hehe, i do this for free for a lot of people.


I think as computer users that loyally pay for the internet and for their own computers, they don't need all that crap on their computers...so i go around fixing it for them.