Parents friends fell for "Microsoft Engineer" scam

Substance · 3 Dec 2011 at 14:22

My dad has just rang me saying that some friends of his have fell for the scam where someone rings up claiming to be from MS and asks you to visit a website and download something,

Apparently it has locked their pc and is asking for credit card details to unlock it, I have told them to first ring the bank to get cards replaced as they have previously used the PC for shopping online and boot into safe mode and install Malwarebytes from a usb drive which my dad will give them and run their anti virus software that is already on the pc,

Is there anything else I need to get them to do to be safe? They are not computer literate at all and only bought the pc a few weeks back

Thanks

Deleted member 77746 · 3 Dec 2011 at 14:28

oh dear not another one..

reformat.

demonix · 3 Dec 2011 at 14:45

SuBsTaNcE said:
Is there anything else I need to get them to do to be safe? They are not computer literate at all and only bought the pc a few weeks back

Tell them to ignore these calls in the future as MS will never call (they also fit the profile of the kind of person who will fall for this kind of scam (from the you've been scammed program that was on BBC one a week or so ago), but it looks like from what you've said they didn't fall for it hook, line and sinker as they haven't entered their card details to remove the lock on the computer).

Alex h · 3 Dec 2011 at 15:09

reformat

Substance · 3 Dec 2011 at 15:25

demonix said:
Tell them to ignore these calls in the future as MS will never call (they also fit the profile of the kind of person who will fall for this kind of scam (from the you've been scammed program that was on BBC one a week or so ago), but it looks like from what you've said they didn't fall for it hook, line and sinker as they haven't entered their card details to remove the lock on the computer).

I have told them that MS will never ring, and to just tell them to sod off in the future.

If it is going to be a reformat so you know if an OEM version of windows that came pre-installed will have any problems reinstalling?

KIA · 3 Dec 2011 at 18:28

MBAM will probably be able to nuke it. Reformat is a little hasty.

ShakenNstirred · 3 Dec 2011 at 20:00

there are so many gullible people around

atomic7431 · 3 Dec 2011 at 20:59

I had a customer who fell for this a couple of days ago and im afraid malware bytes never found anything and it was running painfully slow and i had no choice but to format it! She was stung for £80!

BigBoy · 3 Dec 2011 at 23:59

mailware bytes and a good AV will solve the problem, most of the time they get you to download a VNC server application and get you to give them your IP address. Uninstall what ever VNC type app there is and get all there online passwords changed pronto!

Meatball · 4 Dec 2011 at 00:08

SuBsTaNcE said:
If it is going to be a reformat so you know if an OEM version of windows that came pre-installed will have any problems reinstalling?

You'll be reinstalling it on the same hardware it'll be absolutely fine. With OWM you can reinstall as many times as you want and change all hardware apart from the motherboard. Changing the motherboard is defined as a new PC under the EULA.