Superior Tech Help Pretended to be a referral from CenturyLink Glendale, California

Yesterday evening, Oct 30, I thought I was calling CenturyLink (CL) about a TV hangup and spoke to a technician who apparently was not with  CL but did pretend that he was. With my permission he took remote control of my computer and soon claimed that files on my computer were corrupt and were preventing the signal from getting to the TV.

This so-callled-tech was from India. He said I needed a certified Microsoft tech to clean these files and the choices in my area were to send it to Best Buy, who would send it somewhere else, or to have Superior Tech Help use remote control to fix the files for $250.

This sounded preferable to going through Best Buy so he transferred me to another gentleman from India at Superior Tech. I bought the service and then spoke to the tech. There was lots of background noise, the technician had a heavy accent I could not decipher, he spoke too softly, and he could not get control of my computer. I asked him to call back the next evening, as I had spent 3-4 hours on this debacle and was too tired to mess with it further. 

At this point I turned my TV back on and it was running OK. Thinking that the referral from one Indian to another was suspicious, I looked up Superior Tech on the internet and ran into the complaint from the lady who said Superior Tech tried to force her into paying $250 to remove their logo from her computer. 

I then called my credit card company to have them avoid payment of the bill when it came through. Instead the rep arranged a 3-way call between himself, me and a Superior Tech supervisor. We asked him to negate the bill and refund me. Even then he continued to try to keep me as a customer, but finally relented and said I should be getting an email notice of a refund in a day or two. He would not give us a confirmation number, however.

Tomorrow will be be two days. If I don't hear from him I will call back and if he reneges on the refund, I will call my credit company and request they issue me a new card.   When my phone bill comes in I will see what number it was that I called--the one I thought belonged to CenturyLink, and call it again to see what company/person answers it.  They/he appeared to be working with Superior Tech.  

I called CenturyLink today to ask if this referral process was typical. They said they did employ any one from India, had no tech by the name I gave them, and that there was no link between my computer and the TV.  I can't say that Superior Tech acted fraudulently, but it seems some sort of scam is being perpetrated.