Virgin Media Community

[Rustyuk]

• Just recieved a call from supposed Virgin Media Centre, saying that there is irregularities on my broadband. I replied that I would check with my provider and he hung up, I suspect a scam.

[damianmkv]

we've had the same thing for the last few days, either from "out of area" or "private number". We are getting 5-10 calls a day

Surely there is a way of blocking these type of calls ?

[Dom_tom]

I’m having the same today in London. Call from “Virgin technical team “ about issues with service asking for my IP address 

it followed a number of calls without anyone on the line...

the last one came from 01902262421. Wish there was an easy way to report to VM that people are impersonating them to scam

[goslow]

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@Dom_tom wrote:

I’m having the same today in London. Call from “Virgin technical team “ about issues with service asking for my IP address 

it followed a number of calls without anyone on the line...

the last one came from 01902262421. Wish there was an easy way to report to VM that people are impersonating them to scam

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VM are well aware of the scammers impersonating VM tech support, not least because of the dozens of threads which pop up on the forums each week about it.

Simplest solution, ignore/hang up when receiving these calls or screen calls on caller ID or, better still, let the scam numbers ring out unanswered or just let all calls go to answering machine and pick up the relevant ones. If your phone has the facility, set a unique ringtone for callers in your phone address book, which can help distinguish real calls from scam calls.

Screening the calls (as opposed to trying to block individual numbers) is the best approach using devices such as trueCall or some of the BT phone ranges with trueCall technology built in. This approach restores the functioning of the landline back to something like normal.

[damianmkv]

It’s not always “practical” to let numbers ring out or hope genuine callers leave a message. For example, my kids are homeschooling as all others are and the school calls from a private number twice weekly to check on their well-being. My wife is medically vulnerable and the healthcare provide calls either from out of area or private number. If you miss these calls, history tells us they don’t call back. You can block unrecognised numbers from your iPhone so perhaps there should be an easier way to do this on a land line ( I’m aware of a few handsets that can do this and I realise that people change their mobile more frequently than their home handsets ). Perhaps providers could be more proactive to stop these calls

[goslow]

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@damianmkv wrote:
It’s not always “practical” to let numbers ring out or hope genuine callers leave a message.
<snip>
Perhaps providers could be more proactive to stop these calls

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Whichever option you use to mitigate against the scam calls (ignoring, answering machine, screening with a device etc.) is up to you, based on how much you use your landline, how many scam calls you receive, how much the calls annoy you, how much money you are willing/able to spend to solve the problem and how much you actually use your landline.

If you make regular use of your landline to receive important calls, then you should look at a trueCall unit or a BT Premium phone and reclaim the use of your landline from the scam callers. I would recommend the trueCall standalone unit as it is the most customisable.

Read through the many (which must be into the hundreds) of threads on this subject on 'Home Phone' and 'Security Matters' forums and you will discover why trying to block individual numbers is a fruitless exercise for the automated scam calls and won’t stop them ringing your phone (even if such a number blocking feature was available on a VM landline).

Over the next few years, the existing phone network will be moved to a VOIP-based service and screening the calls at a network level will become more practical to achieve. With that in mind, it seems fairly unlikely that VM will add any more anti-scam-call features to the existing phone network. In the meantime, you have to pick whatever DIY approach works for you in dealing with the scam calls if you use a VM landline.