Cold Call

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If Doug Varey clicked on a pop-up display provides Computer Security protection for 12 years for £556, he wrote.

"I had no reason to suspect it was real," he says.

That was a mistake. Mr Varey was a victim of a common online Scam known as a computer software service fraud which ended up costing Him Some £4,000.

the Indian police Now has two call centres and arrested seven people, the lose of involvement in the fraud, has seen a suspect, a victim thousands.

The arrests follow an international operation with British and Indian police service, and the tech giant Microsoft.

The BBC has exclusive access to the operation.

The Investigation , which lasted four years, focused on what is known as computer-software-fraud service.

The City of London Police say it is one of The Most common online fraud, to Act, with over 2,000 reported cases of fraud every month.

Doug Varey Paid thought £4,000 a company in Kolkata in India

The raids of the cyber division of Kolkata Police are the target of the Call Centre in the Indian City to have been used to target thousands of victims in the United Kingdom and the United States .

the Retired business man Mr Varey says The Price of the Computer Security protection at first attracted Him .

" I thought, per year, which is pretty cheap. And I wrote it. "

A few months later, The Phone one evening, rang in his Devon home. The security company had told Him that he had a serious problem and had to go and look at his computer.

There he was shown what he said was, was a Russian man who had taken over his computer. "I saw in this image, where there is a picture of a thick-set man in his 50s, I think, on a computer, to do things.

"And this guy said: 'Oh my God, oh my God, this is worse than I thought. "And he took my anxiety to The Point where I was panicking. "

He was The Man , buy weapons, ammo and hand grenades. The consultant on The Phone said it was a thing he could do, the problem will pay off - for a advanced level of security to a "special offer" price of £4,000.

"Well, not this time, it doesn't matter what he said," he explains. "I wanted to finish with the problem. "

Important information

While he thought he had spoken, someone, with headquarters in New York , was The Money Paid to a company called Vision Call services, with an address in Kolkata, India.

It was only Some weeks later that Mr Varey realized that he was a victim of computer-software-fraud service.

He was recently contacted by a Microsoft-executive-member of Parliament for The Investigation , which has seen The City of London Police is working with several Indian police. Microsoft was involved in the financing of The Investigation , since the mesh is claiming to be the caller often to work for The Company .

The documents, which Mr Varey were important information, like the operation on raid-call Center in Kolkata was planned. to be

How To avoid

The City of London police>said, who thought they were the target of computer software service Scam fraud should contact action.

The Police offered these tips to avoid being scammed:

the offices of The Vision call Services is one of the locations was aligned. A statement from Kolkata said The Police had found an illegal call Center in operation, with the callers, posing as officials of Microsoft. A Number of computers and hard drives were seized and four persons were arrested.

'warning'

Commander Karen Baxter of The City of London police, The International operation of said, a message to criminals: "the foreign scammers should see this as A Warning : we will use every tactic in our power to stop their malicious Criminal Activities . "

The scammers use a variety of techniques to extract cash from your victim. Sometimes they use pop-up ads offer a worthless anti-virus protection package, or call to ask, you have detected a problem on your PC.

But often, they persuade their victim to give them remote access to your Computer. Once you have reached that, you move on in your target group's online Bank account.

Commander Baxter says that these unscrupulous criminals who stop at nothing to get your victim to bleed dry: "you are very persuasive, persistent and have developed sophisticated systems in an effort to evade capture. "

Microsoft welcomes the success of the operation in Kolkata. The Company 's UK head of legal affairs, Hugh Milward said:"Effective public-private partnerships are essential if we are to combat sophisticated cyber-criminals who operate on a global level. "

The Company says it will never cold-offer people a call to technical support.

Mr Varey says he feels "a plonker" for the fallen for The Scam , but he wants to help others, not to deceive.

"The Money is gone, but to do what I really want is to stop other people falling for this same Scam . "

honiton, fraud, cyber-security, microsoft, organised crime

Source of news: bbc.com