There are few tasks more tiresome than getting a new printer properly set up. Somehow, it never works on the first try, no matter the make or model. The device will probably function for three tries and then break down again. It is a universal frustration. But there are a few people who have experienced more lasting hardship than you’d expect while setting up their printer. Scammers have for years been preying on the unsuspecting, desperate people who need to download setup software for their new printer. And it’s a big problem for Canon, one of the world’s biggest printer brands, in particular.
Gizmodo has found several fake websites run by scammers who claim to offer legit Canon printer drivers, a type of software that allows your operating system to control a specific piece of hardware. Gizmodo discovered the fake websites by filing a FOIA request with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for consumer complaints about Canon. FTC Complaints about Robinhood, Binance, AirBnb, Venmo, and Tinder have revealed similar patterns in the problems users face when using these internet companies’ services.
The Canon scam is specific. The complaints are filled with tales of people who were simply trying to find a Canon driver for their printers. The hapless users found themselves on a number of different sites where the fake drivers would fail to download. After that, a chat box would appear and “customer service” would offer to diagnose the problem. Sometimes,…
