Tell HN: audio of person who lost £15,000 to fake Microsoft calls
She gave them access to her computer; the showed her an error log and offered to fox those with a lifetime sub of just £250. She paid that. They called month and found more problems each time which required further payment to fix (even with her lifetime subscription) which she paid.
She eventually realised something was wrong and the police got involved.
The fraudsters then called her up claiming to be from law enforcement. They said they needed her to make a £600 payment so they could tell where the money was going to, so that the could then make arrests. Again, she paid repeated sums of money to those people.
The interview is very near the end of this 56 minute programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b045yg1w
So: how do we protect vulnerable people from fraud?
HN hears a lot about over zealous protection (Paypal holding funds; Google shutting accounts; credit cards blocking cards used abroad) but we don't tend to hear much from people losing a lot of money.