An Amelia man, James Reno, and his business, ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC, is involved in a massive “scareware” scheme and at the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a U.S. district court has issued a temporary halt to the scheme, which falsely claimed that scans had detected viruses, spyware and illegal pornography on consumers’ computers.
According to the FTC, the scheme has tricked more than one million consumers into buying computer security products such as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe and XP Antivirus. The court also froze assets of those responsible for the scheme, to preserve the possibility of providing consumers with monetary redress.