My first film, a re-version of an item which aired in Watchdog in October, sees me and LBC's James O'Brien shed light on a scam known to many as the 'Microsoft Support Scam', eventually catching the crooks red-handed.

A three-minute short can only tell so much of the story, so for the many who’ve gotten in touch here’s the technical bit:

On an Apple MacBook running virtual machine software I performed a fresh install of Microsoft Windows 7, loaded anti-malware software, and seeded files in my Users folder and desktop to make it look like a well-used PC. On the host Mac I ran screen recording software, an X server and the Wireshark packet sniffing software to help identify where the scammers were connecting from (alas, we didn’t get to cover the last bit in the film). My final tool was a web browser with some simple who.is tools, and an hour or so raking through some 'who called me' forums to find some leads.

In researching the story I've been indebted to generous input from Jim Browning and Troy Hunt, both of whom are very experienced at calling out PC support scammers - do check out their work.

Plenty more to come from Watchdog Wednesdays including a revelatory film on public Wi-Fi hotspot safety - keep an eye out over on BBC Three.