Desperate for Advice

[UselessAnnie]

Can anyone advise me as I have cried for most of the day worrying about how to resolve this and still no further forward.

We are a middle aged couple and after years of saving scraped enough money to buy a new PC as ours is 15 years old.  So walked out of Argos excited to have an all in one PC.  Got it home and plugged up.  We had windows 10 on our old machine and in possession of the product key so thought we could load onto our new PC.  We attempted this several times but produce key didnt work.  On the site we tried to download from which innocently we thought was Microsoft we clicked on a link regarding "contact" thinking we might get a number to ring.  This is when it all went wrong and how lack of knowledge leads to disaster.  As I said we th ought we are in Microsoft website.  The link gave option to chat which we did and someone started asking what problem was so we said product code which they asked for and we have it go them.  They came back and said it was a valid code so they coulds ort for us.  Stupidly and I feel sick even thinking about it they asked if they could remote on to sort.  We agreed to this.  They said at anytime we felt uncomfortable about the remote we could end it.  Anyway we watched as they moved around screens and downloaded what looked to be Office.   The person sent us links to information about training and guidance to use system etc - just before it all finished I noticed at top of screep that a tab which I think may have been their log in address www.123rescue.com, by time I was mulling this over the person said all done and asked if anything else and with that logged off and a feedback form came up.  Panicking I googled the web address and understan that it was probably a scam.  We havent been asked for payment but  the Office package doesnt work when you click on the icons it just says you need to buy product.  

We haven't done anything else on the PC apart from go through the standard set up when you switch it on. i.e. havent surged the net, created any folders or saved any documents or go onto things like internet banking.

We spoke to Curry's who said we have been scammed and they can wipe the hardrive and reinstall windows for aorund £100.  So we wonder if we can do a factory reset and would that wipe anything that potentially has been placed on our computer to harm it.  We don't understand these things much but believe there are two parts of the hard drive ? partition.  So would a factory resent sort this out.  i am so upset that we feel like putting computer in cupboard and leaving switched off.  Can anyone please help us :(?

[Duane_D · Accepted solution]

I have brought your issue to the attention of an appropriate team within HP. They will likely request information from you in order to look up your case details or product serial number. Please look for a private message from an identified HP contact. Additionally, keep in mind not to publicly post personal information (serial numbers and case details). 
Thank you for visiting the HP Support Forum.

[UselessAnnie]

Thanks Duane maybe there is hope for me to get this resolved - I shall dry my tears and keep fingers crossed some advice may be forthcoming.

Kindest regards

[UselessAnnie]

Sorry Duane to bother you but do you know how many days / weeks it might  take for HP to get back to me?  

[Photoray002]

Annie,

there is really no way to know when they will contact you but usually its within a few days.

In the mean time... I assume this is an HP all in one PC correct?

It will help next time to include the full model number of the computer.

When you purchase a new HP, there is no need to add a key to activate Windows. It comes preinstalled with Windows and already has the activation key set up in it.

Unless you meant to say, you were trying to setup Microsoft Office???

You can do a Factory Reset yourself to wipe out what ever the scam techs have done.

Here are the instructions on how to perform this...

HP PCs - Performing an HP System Recovery (Windows 10) | HP® Customer Support

Scroll down to the bottom and click on "Recovery when Windows 10 does not start correctly"

IF you need further help with these instructions, let us know.