The police are investigating scam phone calls made to several people who were tricked into giving fraudsters access to their computers, and in some cases also their bank accounts, to get rid of fictitious viruses.

Victims of the scam said that the callers sounded foreign and were very patient with them

“The damage suffered by Maltese residents has been, in the majority of cases, limited to having to re-install the computer (software) as a precautionary measure given that the callers had been granted remote access to the computers.

“There have been instances, however, where Maltese residents have provided their credit card details and have reported trans­actions of about 300 (€232) charged to their credit card,” the police said.

On Tuesday, The Times reported how several people were falling victim to a telephone scam.

IT consultant Patrick Cutajar said that, over the past week, he heard of at least nine cases of people whose computers were infiltrated by fraudsters who phoned from overseas.

They tricked people into giving them access to their PC and then tampered with it to make them believe their computer had viruses. They then tried to “sell” subscriptions to software to get rid of them. In some cases, the computers were actually infected.

Victims of the scam said that the callers sounded foreign, some saying they had Filipino or Indian accents, and were very patient with them. Some phone calls lasted over two hours.

Fraudsters also told them that local IT technicians would not be able to solve the problem and assured victims that they represented a professional company.

Many victims ended the conversation when they were asked to make payments.

The police said the cyber crime unit was investigating. “Several reports have been received in relation to these types of calls. These reports are being treated separately given that the calling telephone numbers, websites provided by callers and directions provided by the callers differ in most cases,” the police said.

In a message to the public, the police reminded people not to provide information or make payments to unknown individuals who offered a service they had not subscribed to.