Computer owners in Blackburn with Darwen are being warned to be on their guard about fraudsters claiming to work for Microsoft.
Consumer protection officials at Blackburn with Darwen Council, say they’ve received several reports of people being targeted by the gang under the guise of fixing problems with the computer.
The crooks encourage the owner to log on to the machine in a bid to steal financial and personal information as well as trying to charge for their services.
Pensioner Jean Murdey, 83, from Darwen, almost fell for the scam and now wants others to be on their guard.
“I got a call from someone calling himself Andrew from what sounded like a call centre. He said he was from Microsoft’s technical department and they had been looking into my computer and I had a problem,” said Jean
“I didn’t think he was a fraudster so I went on the computer and he had me pressing keys and he got remote control of it. I started to get suspicious and asked him how much it would cost and he was very non committal about it but eventually said £89.
“Luckily my daughter walked in and asked for his name, number and who he worked for. He gave an 0891 number, which is a premium number and said technical support so she told him we’d get back to him and put the phone down.
“A friend had a look at the computer and it wouldn’t even let him do system restore. I’ve had to take it back to the shop and have it wiped and everything reinstalled and they said several people had had similar calls. Luckily I don’t do internet banking and hadn’t used my credit card online. The shop only charged me £10 to sort it out but that’s £10 I didn’t want to spend.”
Councillor Yusuf Jan-Virmani, executive member for neighbourhoods and customer service, urged people to be on their guard.
“Microsoft state clearly on their website that they do not make technical support calls. If you receive a call from someone claiming to work for them, or any other major name company and have any suspicions at all, just hang up. Never, ever share personal or financial or login information with anyone you don’t know,” he said.
In June last year Microsoft released details of an international survey about technical support scams carried out among 7,000 computer users in the UK, Ireland, the US and Canada. Fifteen per cent of them had received a scam call and 79 per cent of those suffered some financial loss, ranging from under $100 to over $1000.
Microsoft advises anyone who thinks they have already been a victim of such a scam to change passwords on their computer, main email account and any financial accounts, run a security scan to find out if malware has been installed and contact their banks and credit card companies.
And the National Fraud Authority would like to hear from anyone who has been targeted for intelligence purposes. You can report it at their website www.fraudaction.org or by calling 0300 123 2040.
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