Phone Security Reset in Linton
Scam call, remote access, or a phone that feels like someone else is on it. A full erase and clean reinstall, about an hour, £24.
From Linton, a phone your bank has told you to reset can be in our hands, erased, reinstalled and back with you inside a morning.
The shop is at 3 Queen Street in Haverhill, about 15 minutes away, with no appointment to book, and the reset takes about an hour. People come to us from the village having had the same call, someone posing as the fraud team, a screen-sharing app such as AnyDesk installed on a stranger's say-so, and then the real bank saying the phone has to be wiped before its app will run again. We erase it fully, put a clean copy of the operating system back on and give you a report for the device. Know your Apple Account or Google Account password before you set off, because the phone asks for it the moment it restarts. If you cannot get over, ask for the free tracked mail-in label instead.
How does a security reset work from Linton?
The reset itself is the easy part. The passwords and the backup are what people forget, and without them the phone comes back clean but empty.
Save your passwords, then back up
Your Apple Account or Google Account password first, because it is what gets you back in after the erase, then every other login you use. Check iCloud Backup or Google backup and photo sync are on before you set off: everything on the device is erased, and what comes back is what was synced.
Bring it or send it
Walk into 3 Queen Street from Linton or ask us for a free tracked label. No appointment needed for a walk-in.
Full erase and clean install
We wipe the device completely and reinstall the operating system fresh, so nothing a scammer installed or changed survives. About an hour.
Back to you, set up as new
You get it back running a clean install, ready to sign in with your own account. Set it up as new rather than restoring a backup from before the scam. Want us to do that part and move your data back? That is our separate Data Transfer service, £24.
What does the reset clear?
Anything that lives on the device. Remote-access apps a caller talked you into installing, apps you do not recognise, management profiles, changed settings, and whatever else was put there. The storage is erased and the operating system goes back on clean, so there is nothing for it to hide in. That includes anything you would call a virus: on a modern phone the erase destroys the encryption keys, so what was on the storage is unreadable afterwards, named or not, and the NCSC's advice for a phone that may be infected is exactly this, a factory reset rather than a scan.
What will a security reset not fix?
It does not change your passwords or secure your bank account. If someone had your phone, treat your email and banking logins as seen: change them from another device, turn on two-step verification, and speak to your bank on 159. Our guide on what to do if your phone is hacked walks through the order.
Laptop or desktop involved as well? See our Mac repair and laptop repair pages.
How much is a security reset in Linton?
The price is read live from our repair pages. Pick your exact model on any of them and the Security Reset row is listed with the other repairs.
More in Linton
The same shop handles the rest of the phone too: screens and batteries, buying your old handset, and console repairs, all for Linton.
Why do people in Linton come to us for this?
An hour, a fixed price, certified erasure software and a report to show the bank, from a shop close enough to walk into.
Walk in, about an hour
Bring it to 3 Queen Street, Haverhill, about 15 minutes from our Haverhill workshop. About an hour start to finish.
Free tracked mail-in
Prefer to post it? Ask us for a free tracked label to print, or packaging with the label already on it, and the phone comes back the same way.
Everything erased, nothing left behind
A full erase and a clean reinstall of the operating system, not a settings reset.
One fixed price, £24
The same price on any phone or tablet, agreed before we start.
4.9 out of 5
across 767 reviews on Trustpilot, Google and Facebook
Scam calls in Linton
A lot of Linton works somewhere else. People travel into Cambridge or out to Granta Park, the science campus on the village's doorstep, and the phone they carry holds the banking apps, the work email, the sign-in codes and the family photos at once. That is a lot to hand to someone who rang pretending to be the bank. Cambridgeshire County Council lists getting you to allow remote access as one of the usual tricks in phone scams, almost always starting with an unsolicited call, and Cambridgeshire Constabulary was fourth in the country for courier-fraud losses in one City of London Police quarterly bulletin, at over £1.1 million. With Linton Village College, the infant and junior schools and The Granta School all in the village, plenty of households have several phones and tablets on the same accounts.
Sources: Cambridgeshire County Council: scams and remote access ; City of London Police, January 2024: courier fraud losses by force
Find our Haverhill shop
| Monday | 9am - 5pm |
| Tuesday | 9am - 5pm |
| Wednesday | 9am - 5pm |
| Thursday | 9am - 5pm |
| Friday | 9am - 5pm |
| Saturday | 10am - 1pm |
| Sunday | Closed |
Security reset from other towns
Same shop, same hour, same price. Each town has its own page with what to bring and how people get it to us from there.
Linton security reset questions
Is Linton close enough to just drive over and wait?
Yes. It is about 15 minutes to 3 Queen Street in Haverhill, and the reset takes about an hour, so you can wait in the shop or wander into town and come back. No appointment. Of all the places we serve, Linton is the one where posting the phone makes least sense.
Three of us in the house use the same Apple account. Do all the devices need doing?
If one device on a shared account has been got at, the others are worth checking at the same visit, because what the scammer could see on one they could often see on all. Bring them together and each is erased and reported separately. Change the shared account password first, from a device you trust, and turn on two-step verification before any of them is set up again.
Can you do it for my work phone?
Only with your employer's say-so. A work phone is usually managed by their IT team, who may want to handle a compromised device themselves and will certainly want to know. Tell them first. If they are happy for us to do the erase, bring it over with the account details they give you, and we will treat it like any other phone.
I use an authenticator app for work. What happens to it?
It is erased with everything else, and unlike passwords it does not come back from the cloud unless the app itself backs up. Before the reset, open the authenticator app and check whether it offers a backup or export, or ask your IT team to be ready to re-enrol you. Losing the codes is recoverable, but it is much easier to sort out before the wipe than after.
Will the phone be as good as new afterwards?
In software terms, yes: the storage is erased and the operating system reinstalled, so it is in the state it left the factory, with the latest system software. Nothing about the hardware changes, so a tired battery or a cracked screen stays as it was. If you want those looked at while it is with us, our phone repair page for Linton has the live prices.
Book a security reset from Linton
Walk into 3 Queen Street with your account password to hand, or ask us for a free tracked label. About an hour, £24, any phone or tablet.