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I had this occur about eight months ago to one of my clients. She go the usual Microsoft Call and they told her that her system was heavily infected plus XP was going to expire soon. Needless to say, she granted them remote access. They used the Windows Syslock command to basically lock her out of her system. They then told her that if she wanted back in, she needed to pay them $300. She told them she had a “hot-shot” computer repair guy and they informed her that said repair guy could never fix the computer.

Needless to say, she learned a hard lesson but I was able to undo the damage in about three hours and restore the system back again. She also apologized knowing full and well I told her never to trust anyone to get into her system and that it was akin to opening the door of one’s house to a total stranger and inviting them in.

These guys prey on those whose only contact with the outside world may be a computer. Plus, if they don’t know anybody who is tech saavy or they are too far away from a repair place, their desperation to keep in contact with the outside world will compel them to pay those big $$$ to get back into their system again (if the creeps actually give you the passwords to get back in again).