Scam?

[Worzel69]

Had 2 phone calls today from Asian people claiming there is a security risk to my virgin media. Continued to ask how many devices I have on my service. Told them 452. Anybody else getting these calls?  Can Virgin do anything about these?? 

[coenoby]

@Worzel69 

Scam?

I am certain that you know already but that was definitely a scam call. Virgin Media do not make unsolicited support calls to customers .

Anybody else getting these calls?

They have been going on for years, although they do evolve over time. A few years ago they used to say   "You have a problem with your router" .

It's not just VM customers who get these calls, BT and Sky customers get them too.

The number ranges allocated to each telecomms company for each UK area code is available from Ofcom. (It's often indicated by the first 2 or 3 digits after the area code itself). Therefore when scammers load up their autodiallers with the numbers they want their computer to call they already have a pretty good idea whether their victims are BT, Sky or VM customers.

Can Virgin do anything about these??

Sadly not. All scammers spoof (fake) the number they appear to be calling from. These days they tend to use genuine numbers that are registered and used by organisations and individuals who are totally unaware  that their number is being used by criminals.

Sadly, the UK's ancient analogue telephone network can not distinguish these scam calls from genuine ones. Therefore until the UK moves over to a fully digital network there is not a lot that telecoms companies can do to block them. That move was planned for the end of 2025 but I don't know if that is still on schedule.

The best thing you can do if you get these calls is simply to put the phone down.  Don't bother blocking the number, the next time they call it will almost certainly appear to be from a different number.

Coenoby