The Microsoft phone scam is similar to the “technical support call” scam, where a fraudster phones a victim and pretends to work for Microsoft.
The criminal states that there is a problem with the victim’s PC, and that they need to follow a set of instructions to rectify the issue.
If a victim follows the instructions, they end up giving the fraudster remote access to their PC – which allows the perpetrator to monitor what the person does online.
This includes the accessing of banking and email accounts.
Microsoft has stated it will not cold call a customer, nor will it sell software or services over the phone.