THE owner of a West Devon computer company this week warned all computer users to be on their guard, after several of its customers were targeted by phone scammers.

Stephen Fryer of Buckland Computers is alerting people about the latest variation of the 'phishing' scam.

Two of his customers were recently targeted by the scammers, but both of them became suspicious and hung up on the caller, before contacting Stephen for advice.

The scam starts when the victim receives a phone call out of the blue from someone claiming to be from Microsoft, or from a technical support desk.

The caller claims that the victim's computer is infected with a virus and will fail very soon unless the victim buys their software.

The caller will then try to get the victim to open various files on the PC, which will allegedly show this 'infection' and will be asked to pay up to £185 for 'lifetime support' for the product.

If the victim refuses to go along with the caller's instructions, they often become abusive and will ring back several times. As with most scams, the caller is simply after credit card details so they can access the victims bank account.

Stephen said: 'If you get a call such as this, simply tell the caller you don't own a PC and hang up. They can't argue after that. It goes without saying that all computer users should have an up-to-date anti virus or internet security programme and I recommend Kapersky Internet Security, plus you should also use a 'spyware' removal programme such as Malwarebytes.

'The latter is free to download from the internet so there is no excuse not to use it.'

Sgt Dave Anning of Tavistock Police said there were more and more scams coming out every day.

' Scams come in many different forms these days and everyone is trying to get money — there are some really convincing ones,' said Sgt Anning.

'You can always ask for the caller's business details, look them up and call them back.

'The key message is that if anyone asks for your bank details on the phone — hang up.'