Police have issued a warning after a Wilmslow resident received a cold call on Saturday, 14th March, informing them that they had a virus on their computer that he needed to fixed.
The caller said he was from a company called "Microtech" and asked the resident to allow them access to their computer remotely. The caller was described as having a foreign accent and quite forceful. He said the cost for fixing the virus would be £250.
Since publishing the warning on wilmslow.co.uk yesterday several Wilmslow residents have let us know that they have also received calls from "Microtech" recently.
Wilmslow Community Sgt Andy Miller said "We have researched this scam and have found the following advice on the Official Microsoft website which suggests that anyone receiving such a cold call should put the phone down immediately and not enter into any conversation with the caller.
"The following has been lifted from the Microsoft website which explains more about the scam."
We have heard from a couple customers recently that have been given a call by someone claiming they are from "Microtech" to report that they were supposedly trying to save the customers' computer from a virus.
They instructed the customers to go into their command prompt and type in "assoc." Fortunately, the clients we have had that told us about this call recognized the call was shady and suspicious and promptly hung up. Neither of the clients we spoke with about this scam had any idea who Microtech was nor how the caller had obtained their information.
Microsoft responded to this threat recently in a blog that can be found here.
The Microtech "you've got a virus" call is a complete scam. Do not believe anything such a caller says, do nothing he tells you to do, and hang up on him immediately. If you were a victim of this scam and let them into your computer, you are at grave risk for what they might have done there (installed spyware? Identity theft? Stolen passwords?).
The Microsoft blog, strongly recommended that anyone who had unwittingly given access to their computers to the caller who claimed they had viruses do the following:
1. Reinstall Windows cleanly
2. Change all your passwords, especially those for financial institutions and online stores.
