Louise started up Internet Explorer browser on her PC and a screen popped up with a warning

WARNING – YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED

CALL Microsoft SUPPORT on 0208 3808 8964 IMMEDIATELY.

DO NOT TURN YOUR COMPUTER OFF OR ATTEMPT TO DO ANYTHING ELSE

Louise called the number immediately.

A very pleasant Indian man answered and he seemed very knowledgeable and assured her he would resolve the problem.

He asked her to install a piece of Citrix software which she did so he could take control of her PC and establish the nature of the problem.

He emphasised that the PC was badly infected and how important it was to remove the threat.

He warned her to turn off any other computers or mobile phones in the house as they could also become  infected.

At this point, his patter turned into more of a sales pitch for a package that would solve her problem and this made Louise suspicious.

Now Louise’s husband Charles was surprised at the request to turn off other computers and that made him suspicious so he turned the iPAD back on and searched for scams.

He found it – the “Microsoft Support scam”.

Charles then pulled the power cord from the PC to end any incursion by the support scammer.

What happened next?

The scammers called back three times and were ignored until they stopped calling.

Charles ran Kaspersky anti-virus to scan the PC for problems and installed Malwarebytes to also scan for any other malware. He also deleted the Citrix installation.

The PC was safe and they hadn’t been scammed but Charles and Louise had a narrow escape.

If continued, the scammers may have garnered credit card details, bank details, logins and passwords. etc.  as well as being paid for removing a non-existent computer virus.

If you see a warning screen like the one above – turn off the computer and contact a professional.  Do not call the number on screen as they are scammers.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.