Scammers who seem to have accessed Virgin account details

[DJK165]

Hi - My mother's area is currently being switched to the fibre network. I have legal power of attorney but she manages her own finances, but because she doesn't really understand the technology, I have been dealing with booking the virgin engineer etc for her. This has gone relatively smoothly but yesterday shortly after the engineer visit, I received a call from 0800 052 5306 to my mobile and I answered it. The caller asked for my mother by full name and said that they were calling to help with the switchover and they said that they could help me with what we might need, once they took me through security questions. I said that the engineer had just ordered what was needed, didn't they know that? I ended the call. When I looked the number up on "who called me", it is rated as from scammers. But I am left wondering how they linked my mother's name (which is very different to mine as I used my married name) with my mobile number as no other company apart from Virgin Media has this information? I have bit-defender on my phone and I checked my phone - it is clean.

[Alex_RM]

Hi DJK165,

Thanks for posting,

It could be that your contact details are listed on your mothers account if you have a power of attorney. 

I've popped you over a private message, so I can check things for you.

Alex_Rm

[DJK165]

Thanks Alex. I know my contact details are listed on my mothers account and that Virgin is the only company where that applies, so I am sorry to say that you have a leak somewhere. I have answered your private message. Good luck in tracking down the leak.

Debbie

[karubin]

Hi DJK165,

It seems that another moderator said it was a genuine number of Virgin Media. See https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Security-matters/Spam-call/td-p/5471213

I wonder why Alex_RM did not simply tell you that was a genuine number of theirs and made you think the number was obtained by a 3rd party though. That could have ended the confusion easily.