Fake calls pretending to be Virgin Media

[ALF28]

I had a call to a mobile phone 0n 28/03/2022 regarding my internet connection, a man with a strong Indian accent.

I asked who was calling and they indicated it was regarding virgin media.

The call came from a private mobile number which was an EE mobile, or may be spoofed, was not any usual virgin phone number. I have had similar calls where no one answers, the call goes dead.

Although I have had the odd call to my mobile from virgin who have my older  existing mobile contact number, this was a new spare phone so was not virgin media, but a fake caller pretending to represent virgin media.

I indicated they had rang the wrong number and they rang off.

This call  was unusual, as mostly I get these calls to my landline from virgin, not my mobile.

I presume the normal policy is for Virgin media to use the virgin landline if you have one, so call to a mobile phone would only be normal if you had no landline.

I do get virgin sales  or technical calls on the landine that may be genuine, but not always sure as some are from call centres outside of the uk.

alf28

[MOD EDIT: SUBJECT HEADING EDITED FOR CLARITY]

[japitts]

VM don't make outgoing calls "regarding your internet connection".

Classic spammer technique by the sounds.

[MrHalfAsleep]

My favourite was "Your router has been compromised by many countries..."😉

[Serena_C · Accepted solution]

Hi @ALF28

Thank you for making this post alerting us to the phone call you received, I am so sorry to hear that you received a fraudulent call on your mobile. Thank you for remaining vigilant and not giving out any personal information. Please visit https://virg.in/fraudcalls to see what you can do to put a stop to this. You can also report the call at https://virg.in/reportspam and https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

Kind regards,

Serena

[ALF28]

call filtering-can be useful

Some mobile phones do have call filtering so a particualr number can be whitelisted or blacklisted (blocked) and the same for texts if they have a sender phone number, but most are empty numbers and can not be blocked, similar to a witheld or null phone call.

I have used this faculity on two newer  mobile  phones (dumb phones), some older ones do not have this facility.

This is different to call barring which may blocks all calls, but each phone may have a different setup.

The options are usually found in security or tools, but be carefull not block wanted calls or unexpected calls you may need, some phones are better than others but also check to see the usual wanted calls can  still get through that you may need.

Also if you get calls from someone you do not know these can be blocked, I do get these quite often.

The problem with unwanted texts is that they are hard to stop, and even if you are getting wrong texts which may be genuine or not, the companies sending them are not allowed to rectify why you get these due  to privacy and data protection rules. (I have tried)

My latest text yesterday is  a possible fake parcel "delivery failure/re-delivery"  from Evri and does not even have a tracking number just a link which may be fake?

alf28

[Molly_T]

Hi Alf, 

Sadly these kinds of text scams are also incredibly common these days, I have had a few myself!

I can completely appreciate concern and frustration caused by these. 

Sadly there is very little we can do to stop them outside following the Fraudulent calls guidance outlined by Serena above, and reporting them to Action Fraud. 

If you ever have a similar experience and have concerns that the contact has legitimately been from Virgin Media, you can of course get in touch with us so we can check this for you. 

Let us know if there is anything else we can do to help!

All the best.