Phishing Phone Call Claiming from Virgin Media

[MrB999]

I have just received a phone call claiming to be from Virgin Media saying my internet is running slow and he is calling to correct it. This was received on our Virgin Media landline from telephone number 0121 525 6998.

I played along for a while to see what he was after - he wanted me to open Windows > R and type in eventvwr.  I was not progressing any further to changing any details as I am not falling for it.  I asked him to confirm that he was Virgin Media and he said he could confirm by providing unique data on my computer.  He said to again run Windows>R command prompt then assoc - he gave me the number 00c04fd7d062 and told me to check this again .ZFSendToTargetCLSID which obviously matched.  I can see that someone without knowledge may fall for it.

I had no intention of following any further instructions and told him I would ring Virgin Media IT help to solve any issues.

I am aware this is a scam (Virgin Media never do anything before confirming your details and letters from your password!) - I am just posting the details in case the number can be traced/blocked on the system and to warn other customers.

[highbeech]

I had similar this morning three phone calls on my VM land line, first was no one at the other end 2 mins later girl saying she was from VM saying there were errors on the broadband, wanted me to run event viewer , I said "application not found" she hung up. both of these call had number withheld. the 3rd call came from 01144186124 , a man saying his name was David from VM saying I had slow internet and bad ping asked me to run speed test, I gave results 100Mbps down, 10Mbps up ping was 10ms. he said my upload speed should be faster than download and ping should be less than 5ms. He then got his supervisor "John" on the line who  asked me to go to https://vmhub2.weebly.com/ which is a site that appear to be VM but it is definitely fake, the links go to a S/W download which I suspect would be some kind of virus or ransomware. I didn't go there. I challenged "John" saying this didn't seem right, he just told me to download the 'f#@1ing' software, to which I said I didn't think he was from VM at all, and he then got more and more abusive.

who can take down the fake site ?

[highbeech]

another call from 01916976328 claiming to be "alex from VM"

[nodrogd]

As I have said in many replies here, do not engage with them, just hang up.

We are ALL getting these calls. Providers are allocated blocks of numbers on each exchange. The databases listing these are readily available on the internet, so scammers can safely assume most of these numbers will connect to a customer using that provider. Hence you are getting calls from “Virgin Media”. These originate from India, the scammers using VoIP software that can “spoof” any number they choose, including your own. I have even seen threads from customers complaining that the scammers have used their number to call others, resulting in them getting abusive calls from people thinking they are the scammers.

Apart from getting a phone that filters calls there is not a lot you can do.

[HughJarsse]

Had a few of these over the last few weeks claiming to be from various companies, HMRC, Virgin Media, BT, etc, and have now decided to use a trick my late father used.

He was a football referee many years ago, and when he started getting these scam calls a few years ago, he kept his whistle by the phone. Once these scammers tried to deliver their 'spiel' my Dad, reached for the whistle, and gave then a real earsplitting blast down the receiver, waited a few seconds, and calmly said, 'hello, are you still there??'

Strangely, nobody was...After he had done this several times, word must have got round, because he didn't get very many of those calls afterwards....

So, I have dug out the old man's whistle, and, any of these scammers, now get the full treatment, for as long as I can blow the whistle...

[gstar]

I received a call today and they said from virgin media and ask me to do the run speed test and said my speed is not good and asked me to open this page

[MOD EDIT: Inappropriate Hyperlink removed, please review the Forum Guidelines] and I had some play with them kept told them I opened virginmedia.com and he handed over to girl and she passed to another girl and first guy came back and finally she hung up.

I received call from these two numbers

01438316573

01616916675

[Chris_W1]

Hi gstar, thanks for the message. This is not a virgin media email address and would not open  this or give any details. In regards to the phone calls, these are scam calls and we advise you to ignore them. Any calls from Virgin Media would come from 0345 454 1111 ^Chris

[MrHalfAsleep]

They're getting better at using more plausible numbers.  Stay vigilant folks.😑

[goslow]

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@MrHalfAsleep wrote:

They're getting better at using more plausible numbers.  Stay vigilant folks.😑

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Makes you wonder if they are now somehow now taking the 'live' numbers they do make contact with when they call and feeding them back in as the fake caller IDs for their subsequent calls.

[HughJarsse]

Think that as it's possible to now 'fake' the numbers given out on this site by VM staff (see Chris-W1 above, passing on the 'safe' number?), only needs one scammer to read this, and then 'spoof' the number, and 'bingo' you assume it's a real VM call, because the number has been 'verified' by Staff perhaps??

Just a thought...scammers are getting much, much cleverer, and wouldn't put it past them to monitor the site, (you don't need to be a registered user to browse)  picking up such information..........🤔