Just been chatting to someone. He told me about a new scam going on.
His mother in law was on her computer on Facebook when suddenly her screen came up with the image of her on her computer (via her own webcam) it had a banner at the top with police authority logos etc... and came up saying she had been caught downloading child pornography.
And she had to pay £100 fine. As we all probably know thats not how the police would deal with that kind of offence. But someone may fall for it. It had the visa and paypal logo. There was no way of closing the screen, even turning the computer off and on it was still there.
She was clever enough to ring her son in law and he has taken the computer to be repaired.
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There has been a few similar, your computer is effectively being held to ransom and until the money is paid it will stay blocked. There are ways to get round it and get rid but if you know what you are doing, or know someone who does.
I've had one or two of these in the past - the Metropolitan Police warnings, that is (no way would I have a webcam!). Best thing to do is turn off the PC completely, wait a few minutes, turn it back on again and then select "Safe Mode" when prompted. Then run an anti-virus scan to remove the offending malware.
Unless the scammers have found a way around this?