Think my mum's laptop might have been scammed

[PerditaXDream]

Hi, hope this is the right board for this question.
Chatting to my mum recently she mentioned that she'd paid some company £120 to get "business calls" stopped and she felt a bit silly about it. I tried to get more detail but her memory isn't great and she was obviously embarrassed about being taken for a ride. Unfortunately she finds it difficult to say no to cold callers and seems to be on a sucker list so she gets loads of them.

It seems though that whoever called her up and took her money got her to start up her laptop - she wasn't sure what they did but she said she was on the phone/laptop for about 2 hours. She said they've rung since but she put the phone down on them and has stopped using her laptop. I don't think they were claiming to be from Microsoft in this instance but I can't believe it was anything bona fide.

She's away for a few days so I offered to try and sort the laptop out. I'm thinking of taking it to a computer repair shop locally tomorrow to get it scanned for malware etc, but I wondered if there was anything I could do myself. I'm not very technical but wondered if it would be worth starting it up to see if there's anything obviously wrong. But I'm a bit scared I might make it worse.

Can anyone help?

[LIZS]

Does she have a statement showing the transaction ? There is a site to report online scams and fraud but it may help to have the extent of the problem identified.

[PerditaXDream]

I've just checked her bank accounts for her and there's a credit card payment to PC Wizards showing from 2 weeks ago. I've just googled that and it all seems to point to scammers. I don't know if they'll stop at taking one payment off her.

[Chanatan]

If your not techy,then I would take it to the local PC shop,to be absolutely sure its clean,ir needs to be restored to factory settings,ie it will be restored to how it was when she first bought it so make sure she saves any documents ,photos etc.

Can she cancel her card,might be worth a few days inconvenience rather than a lot of days of worry and the chance she could be fleeced again.

Theres another similar thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1885813-Mil-been-scammed-online-advice-please

[friday16]

Can she cancel her card,might be worth a few days inconvenience rather than a lot of days of worry and the chance she could be fleeced again.

Cancelling a card doesn't necessarily stop continuous payment authorities against it. It's best to explicitly tell your card provider what's happened, and that you do not consent to future payments to that merchant.