If a full-screen warning has appeared with a phone number on it, a siren sound, or a countdown, you are looking at a scam and not a virus. Your computer is almost certainly fine. Here is how to deal with it.
Real security warnings never give you a phone number. Not Microsoft, not Apple, not your antivirus. Not one of them wants you to call. A phone number on the screen is, on its own, proof that the warning is fake.
Real warnings do not use a countdown or a siren. Urgency is the whole trick. They want you frightened enough to call before you think about it.
Look at where it appeared. If it is inside your web browser window, it is a web page pretending to be a warning. Any web page can be made to look like anything.
Real warnings do not ask you to install a remote control program. That is the actual goal of the call: to get onto your machine and into your bank.
Do not be embarrassed. These people do this all day and they are good at it. What matters now is the order you do things in.
If you let them onto your computer, disconnect it from the internet, then call your bank on a number you look up yourself, not one they gave you. Then change the passwords for your email and your bank from a DIFFERENT device, like your phone. Email first, because that is the key to resetting everything else.
If you paid them with a gift card, keep the card and the receipt and report it. Gift cards are sometimes recoverable if it has been hours rather than days.
Then get the machine looked at, because whatever they installed is still on it. Call OkieNerd HQ and we will get somebody to you.
Some of these will fix it outright, and that is fine. We would rather you solved it in ten minutes than paid us to do it.
We are a support and setup service, not a repair shop. Saying so plainly saves everybody a wasted trip.
$39 books an in-person visit, and it comes straight off the price of the visit. Our hourly rate steps up with distance from the town your Local Nerd works from: $110 an hour within 25 miles, $130 in the 25 to 50 mile band, and $145 in the 50 to 75 mile band. That is how we cover the drive, so there is no separate travel fee.
Remote help is $39 for a 30-minute session and starts with a phone call at the time you picked. If you use us a few times a year, Nerd on Call is $14.99 a month and includes two remote sessions and an in-person visit each year.
Cards only. Local Nerds are not permitted to accept cash or checks, so you will never be asked for either at the door. Full detail is on the FAQ.
In-person visits reach up to 75 miles out from the town each Local Nerd works from, whichever state that address is in. Remote help works anywhere. Check your own address on the ZIP checker, or see the whole state on the map.
If it shows a phone number, a countdown, or plays a siren, no. Real security warnings from Microsoft, Apple or your antivirus never ask you to call anyone. The message is a web page designed to look like a system warning, and closing the browser is usually the entire fix.
Disconnect the computer from the internet, then call your bank on a number you look up yourself. Change your email password first from a different device, because email is how everything else gets reset, then your bank password. Keep any gift card and receipt if you paid that way. Then have the machine cleaned up, because whatever they installed is still there.
If they were given remote access, treat it as though they saw everything on the screen and everything you typed. That is why the bank call and the password changes come before the cleanup. The cleanup is important, but it is not the urgent part.
Most of what people call a virus is either a scam web page, which closing the browser fixes, or unwanted software that installed itself alongside something else. Genuine viruses are rarer than the popups suggest. A Nerd can tell you which of the three you have, usually in the first few minutes.
On a current version of Windows or macOS, the protection built in is good and it is already on. The paid products that get pushed hardest are often the ones that slow the machine down and are hardest to cancel. Ask your Nerd before you buy anything.
Usually yes. A $39 remote session covers most cleanups. We come out when there is more than one device involved, when money may have moved and you would rather have someone with you, or when you would simply prefer it.