AN angry councillor has warned residents to be on their guard against a telephone scam involving computer repairs.

Cllr Michael Stelling (Lib Dem, Bolton and Undercliffe) was called by someone claiming to be from technology giant Microsoft, who said his computer was slow and they could help fix it.

Cllr Stelling said he realised straight away it was a fraudulent phone call, adding Microsoft never contact its customers “out of the blue” and there was nothing wrong with his computer.

Microsoft confirmed it did not make a call and warned people against similar scams.

Now he has warned people in Bradford to be wary against receiving such calls and to educate themselves against on or offline scams.

Cllr Stelling said: “It’s a shame that this type of social engineering takes place and vulnerable people can put themselves at risk.

“I can only assume that they would have installed ransom-ware on my machine.

“Please don’t let other people get caught out. I always remember that Microsoft will never call me out of the blue.

“They targeted a Bradford number and the general public needs to be reminded that this type of fraud is still going on and is affecting Bradford people.

“I knew that this was a fraud but other people in the region may not.”

Cllr Stelling said he logged the incident, on Monday, May 9, with Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cyber crime where people can report fraud if they have been scammed, defrauded or experienced cyber crime. The service is run by the City of London Police, the national policing lead for economic crime, and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau.

An Action Fraud spokesman said: “If you receive an unexpected call from anyone claiming to represent well-known computer software companies asking to fix your computer or asking for your financial information, then you should simply hang up.

“If you think you need further assistance, then you should contact the firm directly using a known and trusted number.

“We’d also ask anyone who thinks they’ve lost money to a scam like this to report to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040.”

A Microsoft spokesman said: “We can confirm that this is not a genuine call from Microsoft.

“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.”