Resolved Police threat?

A member of our over 50's computer forum has just emailed me with a disturbing incident on his other computer.he was researching types of books mostly stolen, (or shall we say accidently not returned), from our County Libraries, when the screen went blank, light blue, and a message appeared something like as follows.( He recited this from memory as he has shut the PC down)
" ??????? Police Central Crime Unit.
Illegal activities has been detected on your computer. in the manner of viewing pornagraphic material and sending bulk emails of unsolicited nature and secret terroist plans. This computer is now blocked to prevent further illegal use of this computer.
To unblock computer this computer you must pay a fine of £100.00 via Ucash or Paysafe using the following code. if this is not paid within 24 hours of the blocking of this computer, the computer will be comfiscated "
Apparantly there were other words basicaly stating the same, the heading was what would be expected from one of our major police forces. The ISP quoted was wrong so was the area that the computer is in. I advised him to shut it down until I could get back to him.
He is a retired researcher for the media (TV and Newspapers) and does freelance research for some extra cash. He was not sure if his McAfee was up to date, but remembers seing the occassional window from McAfee.

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Thanks Arie, however the member is quite happy for the HD to be Formatted, as the only work he will lose is the 2 hours research on that day, he backs-up every day to external memory disk. He is concerned that the scammers have his PC details. Will let you know results of my next chat with him.
Thanks again and a Merry Scamfree Christmas.
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PS. what would you suggest is the best PC protection that does not get forgotton?

 

Hopefully that daily backup doesn't have any malware on it or he could end up putting it back on a newly formatted drive.

 

Thanks Wildfire, now that's a thought!. However he has decided to have the HD formatted because of his concern about what the scammers have put on his HD, I have his PC at home now, there is a BUT, I cannot get past the block. The PC boots up ok, welcome (XP) comes on, short cut icons come on screen, then nothing happens, try to get My Computer up, Nothing, eventually after about 20 seconds it blanks to blue and the Police threat message comes on. Tried Safe Mode no luck. Need a way to get passed the block to format HD,
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Thanks Arie.
I have now seen the full text of the 'Police?' scam, and it states that the PC has been detected as viewing illegal pornagraphic material and so on of that nature, but the next bit astounds me when it says that the PC has been detected of having sent bulk emails of terrorist plans. I know of no Police force that that would fine someone £100 for that sort of activity. They would be in the house without knocking.
Will keep you updated. Merry Christmas.
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It's a great day, we have lift off . With the help of you guys I have got rid of the 'Police Scam' block and re-installed Windows XP Pro. For those interested I did as suggested by Arie and booted from the Windows CD, Formatted the C: drive and reinstalled Windows XP PRO. All I have to do now is re-install Windows Office, Internet Connections, a number of programmes such as Photo Shop etc, and tweek the display. ALSO ADD SECURITY before I connect to the Internet.
Before I mark this 'Solved' I will finish all the bits and pieces and see what the owner thinks and how he wants me to set-up his desktop icons. Thanks for your help, I call it a good result although it took some time.
Thanks again.
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I have to correct the Photo Shop Issue, it is Paint Shop Pro X1, it was my slip as I have Photo Shop on my PC's. Having a small problem with getting display down a size, the monitor does not have adjustments and the settings have only Medium (16bit) with a screen resolution of 640x 480 not changeable it seems as no alternatives come up.?
Coral Paint Shop Pro installed ok, have a go at the rest now, leaving Internet till last.
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Trying to install chipset settings, unable to raise BIOS/CMOS for chipset features. Clicked on F2 . F12 . and DEL when booting up but BIOS/CMOS does'nt show. also Keyboard and mouse freeze in Safe Mode.? Where am I going wrong, can do all that on my PC's.
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Here a few others:

F1
F3
F10
Fn+F1 (while booted)
ESC
CTRL+ALT+DEL
CTRL+ALT+ESC
CTRL+ALT+INS
CTRL+ALT+INS after CTRL+ALT+DEL
CTRL+ALT+S​

 

Referance this thread. as the problem re 'Police Threat' has been solved by formatting the HD, I am going mark this Solved. and open another thread in XP for assistance in 'Setting up.
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