Police Log Indicates Possible Phone Scam

A police log entry from Friday shortly before 7 p.m. may be referring to one of the latest in a long line of scams in which the caller tries to trick the person into revealing personal computer information.

The log item says a Sevinor Road caller reported to police that he received a call from a man who did not speak English well.

The caller told the Marblehead resident that he had a problem with his computer, the log states.

While the resident evenutally hung up on the cold caller, an Internet search of the number the call came from brings up reports of scams coming from that number.

In many of these instances, people report receiving calls from someone who claims your personal computer is about to crash and that you need to give the caller control of your pc so the "problem" can be fixed.

Here is a narrative the police log item cites:

"http://news.softpedia.com/news/ColdCall-Tech ... on-150170.shtml They lie about your PC sending   out malware, error messages, etc., and say your PC is about   to crash to frighten you into giving them remote control of   your PC to fix the nonexistent problem (don't let them!). If   they ask you to open the systems tab in eventvwr.msc to see   all the errors, these harmless errors are *normal* for any   Windows PC (mine has several and it runs just fine). Don't   let them take control of your PC because they can download   *real* malware, possibly a malware suite, that can spam,   steal bank logins and personal info, etc. If they've remoted   into your PC, the safest fix is to re-format your drive and   re-install your OS assuming you have clean backups of your   data. You can try scanning with various antivirus software   but scanning may not find all the malware. If you don't know   how, get help from friends or pay a local shop to do it.   THIS IS A SCAM.It is especially dangerous now because criminals are   actively attacking unpatched Java security holes so don't   let anyone into your PCs."