It's no secret that scam artists will go out of their way to deceive you, but with a little common sense you'll save yourself a tonne of stress and money.

That's the message from Bay of Plenty Police today after they received five reports of suspicious phone calls from fraudsters claiming to be Microsoft employees.

Photo: File.

The callers each requested access to people's computer and credit details

Posting to their Facebook page this morning, police confirmed that fortunately, all five people recognised it as a scam and hung up.

'We don't want to have anyone caught out by this,” the post reads, 'so please make your friends and family aware that this scam appears to be active again in our district.

'Whatever the approach by the caller, our advice is to never provide details relating to your computer to strangers over the phone.”

Over the weekend, two people in the Otago town of Alexandra were deceived out of thousands of dollars by fraudsters claiming to be Microsoft employees.

It was part of a 24-hour blitz that saw a number of Kiwis around the country contacted by scam artists claiming that viruses had been detected on their home computers.

During these calls, the fraudsters asked for remote access to the victim's devices to fix the problem, while some were also asked for their credit card information.

For more information and ways to protect yourself from scams, visit the Consumer Affairs website at: www.consumeraffairs.govt.nz