A scam that has been operating in Australia and other parts of New Zealand for some months appears to have hit Mosgiel, where police have this week received reports from residents who received telephone cold-calls from companies wishing to check their "computer for viruses".
Senior Sergeant Darryl Lennane, of Mosgiel, said a local computer store had also dealt with several people who had brought their computers in after the calls, and the store had found key loggers - a programme that tracks the keys struck on a keyboard so the person using the keyboard is unaware their actions are being monitored.
He said an Indian-sounding man was ringing members of the public, claiming their computers were infected and asking them to perform various functions.
What he was actually doing was getting people to allow remote access to their computers and having them place a key logger on their own computer, so personal information could be copied.
People should be very wary of anyone who called them out of the blue and tried to let them gain remote access to their computer, even if the caller claimed to be a representative from Microsoft or another genuine service provider, Snr Sgt Lennane said.
People receiving such a call should hang up, he said.
Police were following a positive line of inquiry on who was making the calls, he said.
The number was an Auckland one, but the calls were not necessarily coming from within New Zealand.
