Clever Scam

[stmartins]

I am having issues with a new line and having chased Virgin for over a month now by email, phone and chat line . I was delighted to get a call fro "virgin technical support " According to them my router was not working correctly and it needed testing. I was advised to log onto the virgin web site and all looked perfect , with logos etc. I was advised to click onto speed test which I did and it was good direct to the PC but very poor on wi-fi. The lady said they suspected a fault on my router and would need to carry out further tests she gave me another virgin site to log onto and advised me the screen would go blank and then I would get a code to allow me access to the test page. All seemed fine. PC rebooted and a new page with diagnostics appeared. She then told me to click onto My account and when I did I got a message "due to poor service and internet disruption you are entitled to £430 compensation. When I queried this she said this was for the inconvenience. She then want on to talk about a technician coming to change the router and we arranged for Tuesday. She now advised my I needed to confirm the £430 by logging onto my bank account and there would be a message there for me to click on to confirm I had accepted the refund . I went to take a print out of the note telling me about the "refund"    but noticed I had no access to my PC and the mouse was not responding. She asked me to log onto to my bank details and confirm the refund but I decided it smelt risky so I told her I was in the office and did not have my card reader with me. She then asked if I had a mobile I could access my account with a pin which I could not.She insisted it needed to be "cleared today" and could she ring me back when I was home to which I told her I was going away for a few days. She was not happy  but told me she would ring back on Monday. I unplugged the router ran a malware search and found malware that tracked my keyboard keys along with an app. to take control of my PC. As I was waiting for Virgin to call me as my letter had requested this the timing was perfect for this call  and it fitted perfectly and I have to admit it would have been an expensive mistake. I spoke to my bank who advised me some people had been caught out by this scam and had their bank accounts emptied in seconds. Its easy to say don't answer calls form unknown people but Doctors,Hospitals, Dentist all ring with number withheld and don't leave a message. I am posting this as a warning as it was a UK 021 number that called      

[goslow]

Unfortunately, your experience is the format of a common refund/tech support scam. A very similar post was listed at the start of the week

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Security-matters/Possible-scam/td-p/4726505

it contains links and further information from past topics which might help you.

[Serena_C]

Hi @stmartins,

Welcome back to our Community Help Forum 🙂

Thank you for making the post alerting us to the experience you recently had with a fraudulent call. I am so sorry that this happened to you, I understand your concerns that as you were expecting a call from us, it did not initially seem fishy to you.

We would advise running scans on your devices to ensure that no viruses or malware can be found and that all password are changed for all of your accounts following this.

Have you also reported the scam to https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/?

Best wishes,

Serena

[nodrogd]

Ignore what shows on caller display. These are either totally fake or clones of legitimate UK numbers. The calls usually originate from India via a VoIP routing.

Also be warned that the software used by these people is very sophisticated now, & can even re-install itself if you try deleting it. You may end up re-installing your operating system & starting from scratch again.

[Darstedly]

I can’t believe I didn’t know about this. Got caught today. Didn’t go into my bank account luckily as I thought it must be too good to be true, but I’m worried about what the scammers could have copied or installed on my mobile

[goslow]

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@Darstedly wrote:

I can’t believe I didn’t know about this. Got caught today. Didn’t go into my bank account luckily as I thought it must be too good to be true, but I’m worried about what the scammers could have copied or installed on my mobile

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Did you actually grant the scammers remote access and allow them to take remote control of your device?

[Darstedly]

I think I might have done.

He asked me the number that came up on quicksupport, which I gave him.

Then there were quite a lot of messages from the server, which he said was to do with the connection errors that were impeding the line speed. The final message said that I was owed £500 compensation.

When he asked me to look at my bank account to check if this had gone in, I closed the call, changed my virgin media password and uninstalled the quicksupport app.

I don’t know what else to look for, or what I need to do. I don’t use my mobile for online banking.

[goslow]

Have a read through these two similar past topics for possible follow-up actions you might need to consider

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Security-matters/Possible-scam/td-p/4726505

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Security-matters/Phishing-re-router/m-p/4716474

Unfortunately, only you will be able to judge how far to take any follow-up actions based on how long the scammers had access to your device and what information you have on the device and what tasks you use the device for as well as any other personal information you may have inadvertently given them during the call. The longer the scammers had access, and the more critical the tasks and info you use the device for, then the more rigorous you are going to have to make your clear-up operation.

You need to be certain that there is no remote access software still running on your device nor any other kind of malware which may allow the scammers access to your device/info. If you are not confident to do that yourself then seek advice from a reputable and reliable local computer shop or mobile phone repair shop. They may suggest backing up the data from your device and then factory resetting it to be sure nothing harmful is left behind on the device.

Consider what other passwords and security questions you might need to change (such as email, social media, key shopping sites etc.) and particularly those where you may have common login names and passwords used across several sites (you should always avoid using the same user name/password across different sites/services). You should also speak to your bank to notify them of the scam attempt. They may have the ability to put additional monitoring on your account to check for suspicious activity.

Speak to Action Fraud https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/ who may be able to give you further advice and information.

[Darstedly]

Many thanks.

It's great to know there are good people out there. This experience left me so disappointed in the human race...the person I spoke to really hoodwinked me.