I truly think that the root cause that people are falling for this scam is the behavior of Intuit. I have received an error message many times in quickbooks desktop -- a non-subscription version that I purchased a CD for -- that "your subcription is expiring...".  I didn't do anything, because how can software that I paid a one-time fee for expire? Well then I got the message in Quickbooks Desktop -- "Your subscription has expired".  I could not get into my company books, could not invoice, pay bills or even do payroll.  I called the intuit number for support to get help, and the only way that they would fix this was for me to upgrade to quickbooks 2023. That was an entire other debacle! 2023 was not ready for prime time, broke my sales tax integration, and Intuit REFUSED to give me 2022. Hours of fighting on the phone to finally get what I needed (after going on twitter to escalate this).  Isn't this exactly how Ransomeware works -- someone holds your data hostage until you pay a fee?

Having this happen to me, I was quite sensitive when I got a phone call soon after this experience, with the caller ID saying "Intuit", and being told the exact words that caused me a week of trying to recover -- "Your subscription is expiring".  I was not quick to rule this out as a scam, because I did not want to be put through the same ordeal all over again. I decided to hang up, and check my credit card on my Intuit account, which was absolutely fine.  I didn't get that message again for a few months, and had to call Quickbooks support again to fix the licensing problem, but the call was in fact a Scam, and it was a good thing that I ignored it.