Planemike,
Yes, this is a well known style of virus/hack/trojan that goes by various names CryptoLocker, CryptoWall etc.
No, there's bugger all anyone can do about it. You're stuffed. Your PC shop should have really been honest with you and told you that before taking your money to look at the problem.
I would NOT advise paying any ransoms, its putting money into the hands of criminals, and there's no guarantee of you getting access to your data anyway, quite frankly, being criminals, they're more likely just to run.
Three lessons for the future :
(1) This is yet another lesson about the importance of BACKUPS !!!! You, regrettably, appear to have learnt it the hard way.
(2) Be careful what you click on
(3) Run anti-virus software
In particular, in relation to number one... I've unfortunatley got very little sympathy for people who can't be bothered to instigate a backup routine. Its not rocket science, its not expensive, it can be heavily automated, people just need to DO IT !
There could be any number of reasons why your computer might crash and burn .... YOU MUST BACKUP any data of any value !!!