Can somebody please HELP me??

[Patty]

Help!!

Have any of you seen those atrocious things that pop onto the screen that have a title bar reading "Messenger Service"?

I cannot right-click on the popup to find out who's sending them.

What gives?

I'm being plagued by these idiots.

Each time one appears on my screen, I report it to the Federal Trade Commission.


Anybody have a clue to how to block those obnoxious popups?


Thanks,

Patty

 

[MSBS]

Could you be more specific about what is happening?

 

[Patty]

I'll try to give you as much info as I can.

While online, a window pops up. It is tan with a blue title bar. The title bar reads: Messenger Service.
By title bar, I mean the very top bar on the window, you know, the one with the x in a square to click on to close the window. But, the window appears as an instant message would, just all of a sudden.

Beneath the title bar, on the tan area of the window, is a message. Beneath the message is a button to click on that says 'ok'. And, that's it.
Normally, on a popup window, you can right-click on it and get the menu options that let you click on 'Properties' to see the URL of the sender. Not this one. You can't right click and get anything.

The messages are stupid. Here's an example of one of the messages:

Message from PRIVACY WARNING to 172.172.39.11 on 11/2/2002 11 AM
WARNING:
WINDOWS HAS DETECTED UNPROTECTED PERSONAL BANK ACCCOUNT AND CREDIT CARD INFORMATION ON YOUR COMPUTER.

ANYONE WILL BE ABLE TO VIEW THIS
INFORMATION WHILE YOU ARE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET.

TO PROTECT YOUR SENSITIVE INFORMATION IT IS
IMPORTANT TO VISIT THE WEB ADDRESS BELOW:

http://pcprivacy.artshost.com

[WINDOWS SECURITY ALERT #2319]
[Your computer is not safe without EPC Protector]

I got this message several times. And, it's a fraud. There is NO bank account or credit card info on my system.

I wrote to the FTC about 8 times already. So, the FTC knows the verbage of each and every message. I'm getting fed up with these creeps.

The FTC gave me some phone numbers and addresses to get some info and maybe some action besides what they're doing. What I'm looking for now is a way to block these messages.


Patty

 

[MSBS]

OK...do you notice it popping up at any particular time or when you have a specific program running? It's likely that it's either a popup from a specific website or it's part of a ad-ware/spy-ware program that you installed on your system without knowing. Something like Kazaa or something that might have said it was ad supported. You can scan your computer for these kinds of programs with a program called ad-aware, which has a free version available here:

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

Also, you might think about getting a good firewall so that programs have to ask you for permision before they get net access, so that you can prevent spy-ware from doing stuff like this. Zone Labs makes a good free firewall, and you can get that here:

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp

hope that this helps.

 

[* kittie *]

close them. or...
yeah, the lavasoft works good. i have that one...i think.

 

[paulewog]

The other computer, on the other side of the house from my room, gets those too. I'd never seen them before... hehe

 

[Patty]

Originally posted by paulewog
The other computer, on the other side of the house from my room, gets those too. I'd never seen them before... hehe

Really? How in the heck can you stop them???

I'm afraid of trying that lavasoft or anything else. i don't use anything foreign to my system. But, I'm thinking of going to that lavasoft site - today.

Thanks,

Patty

 

[seebs]

Windows sucks, is what's happening; there's a protocol for sending messages to Windows systems. I think there's a way to turn it off, but it's a Windows setting. Good luck.

 

[Patty]

Thanks, Seebs. I'll check it out.