Virgin Media NTLworld email account has been hacked

[spills1]

I was on hols last Nov when had attempted fraudulent transactions on my Amazon ac which rang alarm bells. Luckily I have OTP set up so did not go through. On return I happened to check my Ebay account and had £10k of computer equipment being bid on, on my account. I then had an email to from a hacker to say that they had my password  which was printed as clear as day on the email and I needed to pay in bitcoins to stop. I could see transactions for a split second flash up on my emails and then disappear. He had full control of my ac. I reported to Ebay and as soon as changed my Ebay password he changed it again from the email that came through to verify update. After a week Ebay finally managed to block the verification email. Reported to Virgin and I got an IT guy in to offer me support. Understand from him that there was a massive data breach and that NTLworld emails are so insecure as no OTP and only have space to set up short PW with no use of symbols at all. This is unbelievable. Told to change the pw which I did numerous times only for him to change back when an email came through to verify that I had made the change. The only action I was told would be to close the NTLworld email. Before they did that I spent 6wks going through every email shops, insurers ... all my contacts asking them to change my email address urgently. Been in touch with Experian and they have set up a CIFAs for me  and reported on Action Fraud, although nothing happens with that! The only account I could not contact was Uber - was impossible as the hacker had changed my email address and it was encrypted on my uber ac. Every. time I contacted them they just said change your password - which I could not do. Then low and behold after Christmas my credit card had a bill for over £1k of uber rides!!! Ive since had Universal Credit fraud using my name as well. Today I have had a letter to say someone has bought on credit £1800 from Argos. So I have just come off the phone to Virgin Media again - I failed the PW verification- probably as he's changed the password again since I reset this morning. A lady has told me there is no fraud team to help me and I will be sent an email in 3 days to reset passwords. Tried to explain that I needed to shut things down today and that he will just intercept that but was told that is the best Virgin can do especially as I can't verify the account. I 'm so frustrated. explained that this guy has full access to all my virgin emails and that I just need to shut down the account. She said that is the best she can do and has spoken to her supervisor as well. Has anyone else experienced anything similar recently? I have been with VM for over 20yrs from the start but have signed into this community with my iCloud account so I am able to receive any replies.

[Jodi_S]

Hi spills1, 

A warm welcome and thanks for posting on our community forums. We can only apologise for the stress this hacker has caused you since last November.

We can certainly understand you wanting to delete this email address, the only issue we have if this is your primary email address, this is not something we will be able to do for you.

We will happily change your password form our end for you, to see if this stop and further hacks. 

Please click on the purple envelope to accept the chat.

Kind regards Jodi. 

[Sololobo]

Unfortunately it's not enough to just change your email password, you must also check that email forwarding has not been set up and that you run Anti Virus and Anti Malware scans on all devices used for access.

All the recommended VM steps can be found here: https://www.virginmedia.com/help/security/why-is-my-virgin-media-email-hacked

Changing your associated accounts and contacts to a different email address and using that in place of the hacked NTL one should prevent any further misuse.

As to Virgin Media not immediately closing down your email account, refer to sections 6.6, 6.7 and 6.8 of their Acceptable Use Policy 
https://www.virginmedia.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy

6.6. If you do not access any your Virgin Media email account at least once in every 150 days we have the right to delete that email account and its contents without prior warning.

6.7. If the email account is not used in any 90 day period we will suspend that account without prior notice. This will not impact any other email addresses associated with that account, as long as they are accessed within a 90 day period.

6.8. The email account will remain suspended for a further 60 days. During this time you can reactivate it by calling customer care.

Stop using your NTL email address immediately. You will see from the above that it will be suspended after 90 days and automatically deleted after a further 60 days.

[spills1]

Thanks for those insights - much appreciated.

Working with Virgin at the moment to rectify and they are being very helpful . I have set up a new email address with iCloud. Virgin are offering to switch off my NTL account but need to verify as the NTL is the main email whether I will loose my iCloud too. I'm not much of a tech bod. They are going to speak to their tech team tomorrow.

[Jodi_S]

Hi spills1,

Thanks for the private message. I have now requested for the email address to be deleted if this is possible to stop any further hacks.

If there are any issues, I will post back to you.

Kind regards Jodi. 

[spills1]

Another day of the hacker still having control of our email account and setting up loans and impersonating us using our information gleaned from our ntlworld emails.All stems from the virgin media data breach. My post on the forum was 3 weeks ago and was assured my ntlworld.com account would be shut down. Advised virgin team again yesterday that email account still active  and told  'my ticket is still open on the system and would be investigated' Still no change today. Despair- £££k's already lost to this hacker.