RESIDENTS in Malmesbury have been targeted by “convincing” scam calls that result in people being blackmail after their computer gets locked.

A number of people in the town have received the same call over the past week, where residents are told to visit a website that can lock them out of their computer.

They are subsequently blackmailed into paying for it to be unlocked by the conmen.

Malmesbury resident Andy Pass said he was called on the morning of August 24 by someone claiming to be from the Microsoft Windows tech team, who said there had been multiple hack attempts on his laptop.

“They said it is something that had been happening 'in your area and the U.K. a lot’,” explained Andy.

“They asked me to check a couple of files, which I did, but offline, and then instructed me to fix it by visiting help53.com.

“This is a remote control website which gives the fraudsters control over your computer.

“Even for a natural cynic like me, the callers were very convincing, confirming a registration number of my laptop.

“They claim that they are calling from Microsoft in Reading, UK, but it is a London 0207 number that appears on your phone.

“They threatened to disconnect my laptop from Microsoft if I didn't comply with their requests. So I told them to sod off and hung up.”

The criminals supposedly use the website above to take control of computers, then blackmail people and charge a fee to give back control to residents. Reports say they then leave the computer locked anyway.

Andy called Microsoft immediately after the call.

A spokesperson for Microsoft confirmed that this was not a genuine call from the business.

They said: “These scams are unfortunately quite common and use the Microsoft name when they shouldn’t.

“We’d like to reassure our customers that Microsoft does not make unsolicited contact in this way.

“We would also advise people not to trust any caller claiming to be from Microsoft and seeking access to their home PC.

“For more information on keeping your PC safe, please visit support.microsoft.com/en-us/gp/cu_sc_virsec_master.

“Microsoft will never call their customers directly. They will always wait for customers to call them.”