FTC orders bogus Antivirus XP scammers to pay $8.2 million to victims

Scammers Marc D’Souza and his father, Maurice D’Souza, who operated an online “scareware” scheme, were ordered by the Federal Trade Commission to pay more than $8 million to settle charges of using deceptive ads to trick people into thinking their computers were infected with malicious software, and then sold them software to “fix” their non-existent problem.

The settlement was announced this week and the fine imposed on the defendant would be used to reimburse victims of the scam.

Two years ago in December 2008 the FTC requested a US district court to order a halt to the massive scheme. According to the FTC’s complaint, the defendants falsely claimed that scans had detected viruses, spyware, and illegal pornography on consumers’ computers. The FTC alleged that the defendants conned more than one million consumers into buying their software products such as Winfixer, Drive Cleaner and Antivirus XP to remove the malware the bogus scans had supposedly detected. The prices for the bogus apps varied from $40 to $60.

Under the proposed settlement order defendants will give up $8.2 million in ill-gotten gains.