Virgin Media Community

[u2pk]

I recently had a scam phone call purporting to be from Virgin Media which, initially, sounded plausible but soon descended into spouting impressive-sounding but meaningless IT nonsense. When I challenged them, they quickly hung up.

I've now had 2 phone calls today purporting to be from Virgin Media. When I tell them they're not from Virgin Media, they also hang up (quelle surprise!)

This is obviously "a thing" just now, but aside from registering with the TPS (did that ages ago), is there anything else I can do to combat this? I have a note of the phone numbers of the callers.

[coenoby · Accepted solution]

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@u2pk wrote:

This is obviously "a thing" just now, but aside from registering with the TPS (did that ages ago), is there anything else I can do to combat this? I have a note of the phone numbers of the callers.

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There is very little you can do, other than recognise the calls for what they are - obvious scams.

In truth registering with TPS  has no effect in these cases. TPS merely provides a list that genuine, legal telephone marketeers use to avoid calling individuals who have registered as not wanting to be cold called. Scammers treat those lists with contempt or are completely unaware of them because they are based in overseas locations out of the reach of UK authorities.

There is further bad news. It is no point taking a note of the phone numbers of those calls. The criminals routinely fake (spoof) the numbers precisely because they want to avoid detection. They also change them regularly so they side step blocklists. The numbers will either be non existant numbers or even worse, genuine numbers but belonging to totally innocent and  unsuspecting people or organizations.

You can buy call blocking devices for land lines that use various methods to weed out such calls.  A quick search on line will show you lots of options but in my view there are always pros and cons with using those.

Coenoby

[mycetes]

The fact is that phone companies have known about these types of calls for years. Customers have been complaining about them almost since the beginning of time. But the companies have done nothing about them.

I have a mobile telephone [not Virgin Media]. I never ever get any scam calls on that instrument. Why? I ask. It's because Mobile Phone technology can trace the origin of calls. It seems landlines can't or require huge volumes of expensive equipment to do so. Telephone Companies haven't bothered to invest in this. Because they haven't they have effectively killed off the landline phone service.

I and millions of others fed up to the teeth with phone companies attitude to customers about this problem and their failure to address it.  I am going to abandon my fixed line service. This will represent a much deserved loss of income to the phone companies. They've had years to do something about it, but done nothing.

[nodrogd]

The main reason people keep landlines is (as with Virgin) because of the huge discounts it attracts on other services. Most modern phones have some kind of call blocking or filtering built in. I have had nuisance calls on my mobile (a PPI company constantly leaving messages on voicemail) several years ago, so it does happen.

What I would wish they would do is block spoofed numbers in the ranges that are reserved for future use. Many of the current scam calls are spoofing 04 or 06 numbers. I see this on the caller display & don't even bother to pick up.

[Emily_G]

Thank you for the post Mycetes and welcome to our community.

We advise to look into the telephone preference service if you're still receiving scam calls on your landline.

This offers ways in which to avoid these.

Thanks, Emily.

[mycetes]

The Telephone Preference Service does not block crooks trying to scam you. In fact the TPS doesn't really block any of the kind of the calls I don't want to receive.

Please stop telling us to use TPS. It's not the solution to the kind of problem I reported.

The main issues Virgin Media must resolve are 

(1) Have a proper service where issues concerning scam calls can be reported by telephone straightforwardly 
(2) Have proper technology to trace the origin of calls even those from abroad so that we can report the issues properly.
(3) Have a system which blocks calls from countries like India for example, if customers want to block them. I have no known business with anyone from that country.
(4) Block calls which spoof numbers, i.e. validate the originating number, before putting it through to the customer.
 

 

[kayelpee50]

I've just received a phone call from 'Virgin media' about my internet speed. I was asked if any laptops or computers were connected to the router. The caller told me that if I went to a connected pc she could boost my internet speed. Twice I asked her to prove who she was calling from. The first time she said that if i didn't believe her i should hang up, and at the second time the line went dead. If this is a scam I can see how some people could fall for it.

[Hollie_B]

Hi there @kayelpee50 

Thanks for your post. Sorry to hear about this phone call you've had. Do you have the number of the person who called you please? That way I can confirm if it was us or not. 

Thanks, 

[kayelpee50]

Hi Hollie, 

Def a scam call, they tried again this morning. As soon as I raise any negativity the line goes dead. 

They talk about internet speed not broadband speed and want me to go to a PC and I guess open a CMD operation or at some point they will request bank info.

Phone numbers are faked and different each time.

[mycetes]

If a fake service set itself up on the High Street calling itself Tesco Groceries the real Tesco's would be down on them like a ton of bricks in no time at all.

Virgin Media don't seem to take the same kind of care for and over their business despite anyone reporting this kind of problem for years