UpClick provides payment services (collection of online payments and related features, such as local-language translation and interfacing with various payment sources) for various companies worldwide. Their corporate headquarters are in Malta; the only North American office was (at time of review) in Montreal, Canada. Website reviews of UpClick indicate that it cannot be trusted; for example, WOT (as reported by the review website EasyCounter) has Trustworthiness: Poor.

I first encountered UpClick when a friend I'll call "Bill" got one of those terrrifying pop-up messages warning him that serious errors had been detected on his hard drive, and that he MUST download and execute a fix-it app IMMEDIATELY. Bill was also instructed to telephone an 885- number, which he did. This led to the installation of an app called Advanced Mac Cleaner for $60 (less a nickel), charged to his PayPal account and paid to UpClick. Not only that, but a (purported) Service Tech at the 885- number talked Bill into granting him online access to Bill's computer, and as the Tech began to rummage around in it, he warned Bill not to interfere in any way, or the hard drive might be fatally damaged.

Then the Service Tech told Bill that PayPal was down, and that Bill would have to provide a credit card for the remaining charges, a demand which made him suspicious enough to get in touch with me. I told him to power-off his computer immediately, hang up the phone, and not to answer when the Service Tech called him back (which he did, twice).

A little research on the Internet turned up the information that Advanced Mac Cleaner is actually malware, designed to keep the mark paying for additional clean-up services. With some help from Apple Support, we were able to remove this item, as well as the malware that had produced the pop-up warning message. Later, we discovered that a pair of ongoing automatic payments to UpClick, one for $9.95 and another for $19.95, to be made every six months, had been posted to Bills PayPal Profile, payments which we immediately cancelled.

Despite that warning of fatal errors, Bills hard drive seemed to be OK after the computer was powered-off, restarted, and cleaned. We don't know, however, what information may have been extracted as the Service Tech was accessing his hard drive, or what data may have been damaged or altered.

Whether UpClick itself is a scam organization, or only a few of its employees run scams via company resources, is impossible to determine. In any case, UpClick is not trustworthy. Do not do business with this company!