If you haven't already received this phone call, chances are you will.
The caller claims to work for Microsoft, or another computer company, and tells you something is wrong with your computer, but they can fix it.
Their goal is to steal your money and identity
Dorothy Mailer received a call from a woman claiming to work for Microsoft.
Mailer was tricked into believing her computer would crash unless she let them fix it. She was told they could do it over the internet if mailer granted them remote access to her PC, something legitimate repair companies actually do.
Mailer's Visa was charged $279 to fix the phony problem.
"The computer's still the same," says Mailer. "We haven't had anything done."
Computer security expert Tom Keenan says allowing unknown people access to your computer, allows them to access everything you have saved on the drive, which can include social insurance numbers, passwords and bank account numbers.
The Better Business Bureau says the phone scam is blowing up in Calgary.
While the cash grab and identity theft components of the scam are well known, there's another angle you might not know about.
If you grant the caller access to your computer they might install malware allowing them to maintain control of and turn your computer into a "zombie". They add it to other zombie computers to create what's called a "Botnet", an army of computers secretly under the control of one person.
The criminals that send out things like Nigerian letters, job scams and ads for porn sites and bogus products now need your computer to stay in business.
Through the botnet, criminals can remain untraceable and avoid getting shut down by internet providers for sending out billions of emails.
