14 DAY TRIAL // A new breed of hackers use a combination between computer viruses and phone calls to make unsuspecting victims give up their bank details, making them believe they are paying to renew a software license.
According to the Richmond and Twickenham Times, one of the victims is a 63-year-old woman from Hampton who found the screen of her PC filled with error messages.
Moments later she received a phone call from what seemed to be a representative of Microsoft Help and Support.
“It is a very good scam. I had error messages coming up on my screen three times before and then I had a call from Microsoft care support. I thought about it but then I just felt ‘would a hacker really phone me?’,” she revealed.
“The man said he needed to check my software, so I let him have access to the computer. I was a bit worried but the Microsoft logo came up and it looked authentic,” she continued.
The hacker informed the woman she needed to pay a sum of money to renew her software license which has expired.
Cautiously, she told him that she needed to think about it and asked for a phone number to later contact the representative. That's when the cybercriminal got mad and threatened the woman that she would be blacklisted if she refused to pay. Meanwhile, the hackers froze the device in an attempt to intimidate her.
The senior citizen panicked and shutdown the computer to prevent the possible theft of a bank statement present on the hard drive. As a precaution, she changed all her online passwords relating to important accounts.
It seems as this type of online fraud is growing in popularity as other victims have been reported in the same area. People should be very wary about situations where they are asked to reveal any personal information, especially bank account details.