Phone call about a hub upgrade .

[ridley20]

I had a phone call from someone today saying that VM had monitored and found errors on my Hub5. He got me to type in a few things at the command prompt & it did a scan came up with loads of errors. It also displayed an ID & PIN, which they asked for. It all seemed so genuine. He said I needed a new hub & that an engineer would come out to install it on 10th August, He gave me the engineers name (John Dyer), his VM ID Number (VM500K1H). He then said I was entitled to compensation & that he would put me through to the department that deals with this, I decided at this point to hang up, as I was getting a bit twitchy, He kept ringing and sent me an on-line message, in a pop up message box. I contacted VM and there did not appear to be an Engineer booked for me. I'm worried now, that what he was getting me to type in, may have given his access to my PC?      

[jem101]

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@ridley20 wrote:

Snip...

It all seemed so genuine.

...Snip     

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Ah now that's the thing about scammers (and this was one), sounding and seeming so genuine is part and parcel of the business.

Now if I may, I'll complete what would have happened.

'Well Mr Ridley20, it does look as if you are due compensation so I'll just transfer you to the right department'

Bit of noise on the phone, maybe even play a bit of hold music, while they pass you to the person sitting next to them.....

'OK then Mr Ridley20, I've looked at the details my colleague has passed on and it does look as if you are entitled to quite a bit of compensation, I don't have the exact figure but well over £200'

'Now if I could just confirm your bank details so we can credit your account, yes card number and expiry date, thank you all seems to be in order, oh and I just need to check the CVV number off the back. Ah good all in order'

'Yes I can confirm that all of your money will be in our bank accounts within the next hour or so, sorry, of course I meant all the money you are due will be in YOUR account sometime.'

'Goodbye and an absolute pleasure to deal with you - have a good day'

Well at least until you check your bank balance.......

[用心棒 · Accepted solution]

If at point during your conversation with the miscreant you installed and/or granted remote access to your computer you should:

• not panic
• disconnect the computer from your network
• make a note of all the actions the miscreants asked you to perform on the computer
• use another device that you trust to re-secure any services that required authentication and were accessed from the computer during or since the call and where applicable notify the service, i.e. online back, etc.
• then when ready review the notes made earlier to see what, if any, remedial action is required to restore the computer's previous trusted state

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[Matthew_ML]

Hey ridley20, thank you for reaching out and I am sorry to hear that someone could have gained access to your account. 

I can confirm there isn't any active appointments open on this end

We would never call customers to notify them of an issue, so if you get any calls similar to this in future you should hang up. We'd also never request to take remote access of customer's equipment. 

If you have online banking or PayPal I would give them a ring just to them know this so they can do any checks.

This sounds like it was someone trying to get access into your account, normally when we ring up we can run all the tests from our side without you entering any details.

Have you noticed any changes at all?

If they got you to download any software please may you delete it right away. 

[ridley20]

Thank you Matt, I was bit suspicious from the off, but as with most Brit's I didn't want to be rude, but as soon as He mentioned compensation and putting me through to the department that deals with this, I hang up. I didn't download any software. I have run F-Secure check & nothing was found. so hopefully I will not hear from him again. But It goes to show, just how difficult it is to tell the difference between a real Virgin call and the not!. The problem now though, is any calls from the "real Virgin media" will be hung up. So in the future Virgin Media will need to contact their customers by secure message on the Users Account online.

[scrd01]

Hi Ridley,

playing devils advocate here......because of this

You mentioned your got popup messages from him

Even thou you ran an AV scan.... that came back clean

if you want, if it was mine i would, shootover to BleepingComputers and check out the virus/malware section.....   

[Steven_L]

Thanks for coming back to us @ridley20 and I do appreciate how difficult it can be to , we do have some further help and information about this and it can be found here. 

When the team gets in touch with you legitimately, I would advise you to ask them questions that only staff members would know such as your current broadband speed or TV package, date of your last payment or even the last time that you contacted us  the agent will be happy to answer these questions and will have that information available.

Regards,

Steven_L