I received a call from this number today following several abortive calls where you hear half a second of music then it cuts off. Having previously looked up the number on Twitter, where the Virgin Media account has told numerous people it's a legit number, I took the call. They asked me to confirm my address and postcode which seemed odd, but they were able to tell me the date I signed up and advised me to call 150 after the call, so I went ahead. The offer they made me was very similar to the one previously offered (I felt inappropriately) by the tech support rep before he would book an engineer, so that also didn't ring any alarm bells. I also asked why I was receiving calls when I had recently changed my preferences to not receive marketing, and the sales rep said 'Oh yes, I can see you've ticked that', before continuing to sell me on a 12-month contract. I was told that i could get the top level of broadband for £3 more per month than my current contract, which seemed suspicious, and I decided to end the call.
The first time I phoned 150 I couldn't really understand the rep; she said she thought it sounded like a legitimate call and suggested I had received a call about a SIM card (which didn't sound like what the first caller had said). I asked why the difference between my current package and the new deal was so low but she could only offer a variant of my package with unlimited Talk, which she initially suggested was the same price, then slightly more expensive (but allegedly not a fixed-term contract), and then a £2 cheaper offer, but couldn't tell me how it differed from my current deal.
Later I called back as I felt I hadn't had it fully confirmed that the initial call was legitimate. The second rep I spoke to had quite a different story - he said that the number is being spoofed; that if they asked for address and post number it was likely a spam, that he would initiate a security check (but that he couldn't see on his system if I'd received a call, like the initial caller/scammer suggested, and that the only notes on the system were from the first customer support agent), and that he advised me to call the non-emergency police line (this doesn't let you report fraud and refers you to the online Action Fraud form). He also said the first rep was incorrect and the 'no strings' contract she'd offered me was for 16 months!
I have no idea what to think and I'm just amazed that Virgin Media is a.) unable to track what calls it's making to customers, b.) freely telling people to trust a number that's actively being spoofed, and c.) its pricing and offers are so inconsistent that it's impossible to tell if you're dealing with a fraudster or real sales rep.
