She said the man told her the computer needed to be fixed and then mentioned a cost of over $300 fix the alleged fault.
"He asked if I was happy about that and I said 'well it has got to be fixed'.
"Then he asked how would I pay for it and I said 'by credit card'.
"After I gave him my credit card details he asked me what my credit card limit was.
"That immediately made me start to feel suspicious."
The price to fix the computer then went to $US599.
"I said 'why do I have to pay in United States dollars when I've rung a New Zealand number' and he replied because there was so much that had to be put right."
As the woman had an appointment in Wellington, she left the computer on and asked to be phoned back after 6pm that night. Ironically her appointment was to supervise a law test at Victoria University which was about fraud and deception.
After the initial phone call she contacted her bank and cancelled her credit card, noting no money had been withdrawn.
The bank asked if her computer was still on and she said it was "because the person had told me to leave it on and they would fix it [the computer] for me."
Her husband went home and turned the computer off and took it to a shop in Paraparaumu Beach to be "cleaned up".
Police advised her to contact the computer shop so they could forward the alleged scam details to Internal Affairs.
The woman said the whole episode had been "very stressful".
"I just feel I shouldn't have been taken in especially as my first thought, when I saw the message on my computer, was of a scam."
When a person called back at 6pm, the woman told him, "You're just a scam and I don't want to talk to you anymore".
She then hung up and hasn't heard from him again.
