Virgin Media Community

[Glandalf]

Had a call this morning suggesting that my Internet connection was being used by someone else. The caller claimed to be from virgin media and when challenged suggested that I download team viewer from the app store and that I would be able to verify her claims using team-viewer. Obviously this was a scam, how can I report this, can I block this number, is team-viewer inherently vulnerable to scammers, my grandson has pc on this network that has been using team-viewer to enable school work during lockdown is that also vulnerable. Had software back in the 90s that would alert me to any malicious attempts at infiltration, do I need to dig it out.???????? That should be enough question marks to cover the many questions. 1471 "number withheld " but virgin should have that number. Maybe Bt should be prevented from selling UK numbers to third parties which appear to only be used by scammers. 

Any questions that can be answered would be great 

[goslow · Accepted solution]

Lots of past posts on this on 'Security Matters' and 'Home Phone' forums with various suggestions for workarounds and remedial measures.

As you have spotted it was a scam call. There is no point in reporting it to anyone (unless you have actually been a victim of crime) as it won't reduce any future scam call attempts against you.

Little point in blocking numbers either as these are either faked, or a cloned real number from an innocent party, and will change for each call so any number you block will most-likely never be used again and the number block will never be applied.

Personally I wouldn't leave any remote access software installed on my computer. If your grandson needs to receive legitimate support on a computer from a verifiable source then the standalone 'Quick Support' option for Team Viewer is better IMO. It can be run once and deleted after use. His school may, however, have its own requirements and processes in place.

Screening the scam calls is a better approach IMO. Search the VM forums for trueCall for lots of info on this call screening device or a BT phone which has trueCall features built in.

[nodrogd · Accepted solution]

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@Glandalf wrote:

Maybe Bt should be prevented from selling UK numbers to third parties which appear to only be used by scammers. 

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All UK numbers are allocated to providers by OFCOM. The scammers are not allocated any numbers. Just as you can put false or cloned plates on a vehicle, you can "spoof" telephone numbers to look like legitimate ones. There are plenty of companies that legally do this for VoIP driven call centres, but the software can be used by anyone in any country. The majority of these calls come in via the internet from outside the UK, & as our ancient telephone system does not have any 21st centuary security measures there is no way to check the Caller Line Ident code matches the original source. Hence you get calls from supposed UK numbers that actually come from scam call centres in India.

[Glandalf]

Hey nodrogd, thanks for that, was a bit of a throw away comment, but point taken. I do know people that make use of that facility legitimately, had two months of nonsense when my dad fell victim to a similar scam that emptied his bank account. (recovered) ancient telephone 👍😂

[Glandalf]

Thanks for that, will be checking the school link, the caller did ask me to use my computer and only mentioned team-viewer when I said I was using my tablet. Seemed disappointed by that but I was suspicious from the start, when I queried the request for team-viewer and pointed out that in ten years of virgin media use have I ever needed to do anything like that, they hung up.

[Zach_R · Accepted solution]

Hi @Glandalf,

Thank you for your posts and welcome to our community forums. We're here to help.

I am really sorry to hear you received this kind of call. It definitely doesn't sound like the call that we'd make, and we wouldn't make an outbound call to discuss technical issues unless it had been discussed and agreed upon in advance.
 

If you haven't done so already, I'd advise signing up to the Telephone Preference Service to help minimise any unwanted scam calls. You can also find some further information here.
 

If you receive them on your Virgin Media landline, there's more information here.

Thanks,
 

[Glandalf]

Hi Zach, Thank-you for the info, will look into that👍🙏

[Zach_R]

Hi @Glandalf,

No problem at all, glad to help.

Let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.

Thanks,
 

[pvd62b]

SImilar scam to yours.

I was contaced, on hte VM landline, by aperson (callling himself Daid William, saying he was form Virgin Media. He told me I was being contacted as I had made complaints about my slow BB speed (true I have meade three complaints sicne an engineeer visit and had no response fro VM). My issue was described correctly i.e. slow BB spedd and my several complaints (also trues). I was told ther has been an error in the fibre srving my address(I did not think so). I ws told the a replacement modem was being sent on 17/01 an an engineer, John Marshall will call on Tuesday to install it. The heavy Indian accanet wa supicious but I dismissed it as many companies have outsourced their help desks. I was told VM will compenste me £404.65 immediately and could I check my bank accoutn to confirm. At this stage I grew suspicious as your helpdesk is not that customer friendly. However I checked my accoutn and it showed a £2,404.65 deposit from VM. I was told that I was paid £2,000 in error and can I logback in to my account so that they can recover the £2,00.00 extra payment. When I came to do so I otices the OTP mentioned a withdrawal of £700.00. FPrtunately my bank refused the payment and locked my account. My concern is how did they know so much detail about my account? When I asked to confirm my accoutn number I was told they anot authorized to give it out. My money is safe, mu account is still locked. My main concern is the levelof detail the had on my account, if it was a series of good guesses it must have been based on some one who knew VM well. by my past experience with Virgin Media's helpdesk, I must assume that such complaints must be quite common. P.S. my BB speed is still <50 MB, although I keep paying for 200Mb. PPS. My opinion of Virgin Media's help is still 0 - 1, similar to VM's security.
reponse fromgeektoolson ip address 104.17.119.40:

CRSNIC has no information for that domain.

[goslow]

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@pvd62b wrote:

SImilar scam to yours. <snip>

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You are describing all the classic elements of a 'refund' scam but some elements of the usual scam appear to be missing from your description.

At any point during the last scam call (or in any previous contacts with people claiming to be VM) have you allowed the callers to have remote access onto any of your devices (where they can operate your device and take control of it remotely)? They offer this so they can pretend to fix (non-existent) problems but while doing so have full access to your device where they can steal personal information or commit other types of fraud against you by leaving malware installed.

What online security (anti-virus/anti-malware etc.) do you have on your devices and are they up to date and used to scan your devices regularly?