COEUR d'ALENE - Be careful when Googling for technical support.

Criminals might be lurking behind some official sounding names at the top of search results. Mistakes already have cost some North Idaho residents hundreds of dollars.

Stan Straub, an information-technology consultant for a dozen years and owner of Athol-based Secure Network Systems, said in the past three or four months he has met multiple people who have been ripped off.

"They assume that their search results are OK," he said.

For example, he said, if someone does a Google search for "Microsoft tech support," most of the time the top two or three search results are not connected to Microsoft Corp. at all.

Not knowing this, a customer might call a scammer.

"They'll tell you a whole bunch of scary things," Straub said. "They're capitalizing on people's ignorance about computers to take their money."

The "tech support" agent or representative, who likely has a foreign accent, asks for a credit card number to pay for the computer fix, he said.

Other company names have been used, too, such as McAfee Inc. and AOL Inc., Straub said.

The scammers are "located in foreign countries, and unless asked they won't tell you they're not AOL," Straub said.

"Cybercriminals often use the names of well-known companies, like ours, in their scams to try to convince people that their phone calls, emails or websites are legitimate," Richard Boscovich, assistant general counsel for Microsoft's digital crimes unit told The Press.

He pointed to a news release the company published in 2011.

It said scammers sometimes pose as computer security engineers and tell people they are at risk of a computer security threat.

The scammers tell victims they are providing free security checks and add authenticity by claiming to represent legitimate companies, like Microsoft.

Once they have tricked their victims into believing they have a problem and that the caller can help, the scammers then go about trying to steal money.

A Microsoft survey found the average amount of money stolen was $875, and the average cost of repairing damage was much higher.

Straub has a website, www.securenetworksystems.net, that has a page full of "Tips, Tricks, and Updates" to inform computer users and help them avoid scams.

The real Microsoft Customer Service and Support can be reached at (800) 642-7676, from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. (Pacific Time) Monday through Friday, and 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Pacific Time) on Saturdays and Sundays.