Published on:
05
February 2015
Clackmannanshire and Stirling Councils' Trading Standard Service is warning residents and businesses about a scam involving bogus telephone callers who ring to say they have detected a fault or virus on your computer.
The warning follows a number of complaints made to the Trading Standards team about the scam. Very often, the victims of these types of scams have been elderly or vulnerable people who may not be as confident or familiar with IT, computer programmes and email.
The scam starts with a call from someone who says they are from Microsoft. The caller says they have detected a serious fault or computer virus, which if not fixed could cause your computer to completely crash. The owner is then asked to open various programmes on their computer that appear to show critical errors.
The caller then says the only way to fix the problem is to download a special programme from a website - which will cost around £130. If the owner complies, not only will they have been scammed for this bogus 'fix' but the programme they have downloaded will enable every bit of personal and financial data on their computer to be handed over to a complete stranger.
Microsoft have made it clear that they do not make unsolicited phone calls to help fix or repair your computer. Trading Standards advice is that if you receive an unsolicited telephone call that claims to be from Microsoft or any other company and you are not sure about it, then do not give out any of your personal information. The best thing to do is to hang up the phone.
If you have received such an unsolicited telephone call and want to talk to a member of the Trading Standards team, please phone 0845 277 7000.