Is there a way to verify Virgin media support phone call legitimacy or call history?

[dan0o9]

I received a phone call on my landline claiming to be from Virgin media customer support who said they were contacting me about my slow internet speeds, they provided a few basic details about myself and after some diagnostic walkthrough they claimed to be sending me a new router to be installed and around £150 compensation for service interruption but they then started getting insistent about installing some form of virgin media anti-virus and claimed if I didn't accept I would have my service stopped so I put down the phone, Is there some way to verify if I have been contacted by virgin via phone call?

[nodrogd · Accepted solution]

It was a scam.

Virgin Media will not make any outbound technical calls like this.

The numbers scammers use are fake & they can clone legitimate ones as well, so even if it looks to be a genuine VM number, it might not be them.

No matter who calls, NEVER be persuaded to download anything to your devices.

[dan0o9]

Thank you for the answer, its worrying they had some basic information about me. 

[Client62]

If you had not reported a fault and are not due any compensation instantly assume it is 100% a fraud call.
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[Client62]

My in laws are in their 80s and often get these calls ranging over scams of banking / insurance and telecoms.

I suspect the name and address info is lifted from their landline entry in the phone book.

[goslow]

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@dan0o9 wrote:

Thank you for the answer, its worrying they had some basic information about me. 

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The info they have about you may have been collected from a range of different sources inc. general info in the public domain, social media profiles, past data leaks etc.

They will certainly call you again and they may vary their storyline (Microsoft, Amazon, BT etc.). Your description sounds like they were trying to launch a refund scam on you.

They phone you and tell you they are from VM (or another provider) and they have identified a fault with your connection. They tell you they can fix the (imaginary) fault and you are due a refund.

To do this they get you to install remote access software onto your device. Once they have access, they run some regular Windows utilities and tests (all perfectly normal) but which make it look like there is a problem with the device or connection. In the refund scam, they tell you that you are due a refund and get you to log into your online banking while they have remote access to process this. Once connected, the scammers pretend to issue you a refund. In fact they simply manipulate the text on the screen to pretend they have significantly over-refunded you by accident. In reality no money has been transferred at that point.

The scammers then ask for the (imaginary) excess amount to be paid back to them. It is at this point that the victim initiates a real transfer of money (to return the fake refund over payment) back to the scammers or by means of buying gift cards for the scammers.

Other variations may involve the scammers locking the victim's device and demanding a ransom to unlock it or planting malware/permanent remote access/keylogging software on the device for the purposes of further fraud or identity theft etc. in the future.

One variation of the refund scam is shown here on Jim Browning's YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4PllvUowaQ

I you want to know more, well worth watching some of his videos for a detailed breakdown of how various scams, and the scammers, operate.