Forum Discussion

milco's avatar
milco
On our wavelength
5 days ago

Suspicious 'Virgin Media' pop-up advert

When exiting a website this afternoon a pop-up advert appeared on my screen, as below:

Just re-reading this just now it looks suspicious ('...you have been selected, blah, blah, blah...') although the actual formatting of the advert looks authentic. 

Could someone confirm whether this advert is fake or not. I'm not interested in all the prize offers, I am just concerned that my security is being compromised by something pretending to be from Virgin Media.

Thanks,  milco

4 Replies

  • newapollo's avatar
    newapollo
    Very Insightful Person
    5 days ago

    Unless you are based in Ireland where the currency is Euro then it's definitely a scam. 

    The "advert" mentions giftcards - note that the denomination shown is euros, and not in pounds sterling which is the UK monetary unit.

    Also Virgin Mobile hasn't been available in the UK since 31st August 2023 when Virgin Mobile officially ceased trading and was migrated to the O2 network. 

    Info below from the bottom of the https://www.virginmedia.com/help/mobile  page:-

    As part of our merger with O2, we stopped selling Virgin Mobile plans at the end of August 2023.

    If you had a Virgin Mobile plan, you’ll now be on an equivalent O2 plan. While you have the same contract with Virgin Mobile, your services are now provided by O2. All these changes were automatic – and you would have been contacted about them 30 days prior to your move date.

  • milco's avatar
    milco
    On our wavelength
    4 days ago

    Thanks. The more I looked at it the more the content looked fake. It's a professional job, though in terms of appearance etc.

  • Client62's avatar
    Client62
    Alessandro Volta
    4 days ago

    Malicious adverts & pop-ups can be blocked by browser ad-blockers like "uBlock origin"