Scams: Information about scams currently circulating

[markflip]

0272034835 called landline - recorded message "your broadband will be disconnected in 24 hours as there's been suspicious activity, press 1 to speak to advisor" (obviously didn't!)

[RIC9380]

At my 90 year old mums this afternoon and she tells me that she has been receiving a string of calls in the past week from various UK mobile numbers purporting to be from "Amazon Prime" saying that they about to take money from her account and if wants to discuss it press 1.  Fortunately she had the sense to put the phone down and eventually ring me so this just to warn anybody out there who may receive a similar call.

RIC9380

[syoung76]

Yesterday and today I have received calls from 'BT Technical' to my landline advising of an issue with my wifi being accessed by other people. To be able to 'help' they have asked me to give them a PIN from a txt to my mobile and also from an email from BT.

What they are doing is calling me and same time trying to access my BT account using my login ID for MyBT. So it seems somewhere they have managed to obtain a valid listing of my landline number and my BT login ID and are trying to takeover the account.

Both instances have been reported to BT and Action Fraud and I am in the process of changing my MyBT login ID.

[DeltaOskarMike]

Just had a call this morning on my landline from some polite person from BT Openreach saying that they have seen messages from my router that I'm not getting the correct internet speed and they want to help me to fix it.  Usual noises in the background like a call center and the callers sounded Asian.

Summerised as follows...

- That ask you to go to BT or any Speed Test website and run a speed test and confirm to them the upload and download speed.

- They then tell you that you should be getting X download and Y upload speed. (in my case they said 50-60 download and 25-30 upload.)

- They then hand you over to their Senior Engineer who asks you to open a browser to www.teamviewer.com so that you can help them setup a direct connection from your router to their equipment at Openreach.

I play along and ask doesn't BT Openreach have the appropriate tools to access routers direclty to interrogate them, to which I was told that they need to get the router to talk direct to their 'head' in Openreach so that they can then fix the bad internet speed.

I then start talking louder and saying "can you hear me?" "you're breaking up.. " "hello?" "hello?" "I cant hear you" and then promptly hang up..

Only to be called a minute later by the same people asking why I'd hung up on them.. so I carry on speaking like something is wrong on the line and I can hardly hear them... I then get someone calling me an a**hole and the line cuts.

Using 1471 I found that the last number calling me was 01773764945.

Speaking to BT security team, they suggested that if you have call barring, the next time this happens, just dial 1572 and go though the menu system to bar the number that called you.

From what I can see is that the scammers ask you to inadvertantly confirm to them what speed and ping you are getting so that they can then say its too slow and you should be on (slightly higher values) speed. That way they seem credible in what they are saying with regards to your speed being slower than what youre paying for and needs fixing.

Note: Teamviewer is a remote access software which (if i'd let them) would have allowed them access to my PC (in the persuance of fixing the bad internet speed) and dopping god knowns what spyware, malware and keyloggers or worse onto my pc.

My only concern is that they have acquired my ex-directory landline number from somewhere.. probably not too hard as some kosher sites ask for a contact number when making online purchases in case vendor needs to contact you for any reason and if they get hacked (its out of your control) they have your number. I dont normally give out my landline number to all and sundry...

Also there's no such entity as BT Openreach as BT was ordered by ofcom in 2016 to split Openreach from BT so there's Openreach and BT as seperate entities. If you hear someone saying they're from BT Openreach then that's false and should also ring alarm bells.

[TimGriff6]

Just had a scam phone call last week.  BT called and got through the call screening so seemed real.  He wanted to know why I hadn't renewed my contract which had recently run out.  Apparently I should have had an e-mail advising me of options.  He went through the process of trying to get me to sign up to Halo plus and ended up ordering a new disc and setting the contract up at the same rate for another 18 months.  He asked if they could continue to use the existing direct debit which is where I went wrong by saying yes, use the one with xx bank.  All very pleasant and totally believable because my BT contract was just over 18 months old.

Two days later I get an announced call from xx bank telling me that there had possibly been fraudulent activity on my account and had I had any dealings with a telecommunications company in the past few days.  I fell for it and talked about the BT call.  I was told that BT had cancelled a direct debit and added a new one immediately and it needed to be sorted out.  Before we could do that I was asked for a couple of digits from my telephone banking password.  Again I fell for it but as I don't know the password for xx bank, I guessed the two numbers using a code which I was told was wrong.  I told him that I couldn't find the password without a lot of searching so he told me that he would have to send out a new direct debit mandate by post.  I can't figure where the scam is going to unless I do get a fake direct debit form because although I went wrong a couple of times, I don't think that I have given out enough information yet for them to access the bank.

Any thoughts from you would be useful.

[syoung76]

My instinct here is they are trying to access your bank whilst you are on the phone with them. The characters they are asking for will be the website prompting at the time you are talking to them. My advice: change you account password to something unique (not used on ANY other website) immediately and if possible the login username too.

[TimGriff6]

That’s an interesting thought.  I have already changed all security including user name even though there were no attempted or actual log ins registered on the account.  It could be that they were trying to get in on the phone but the bank checked and had no record of phone calls either.  The bank account doesn’t use my name but the callers both had it so it is a complicated one.

[RIC9380]

My response yesterday to "The Home Office" and "HM Tribunal & Court Service" in response to a purported demand for payment of a "traffic penalty charge" for £50.96 issued to a friend of mine yesterday:

Oh good evening!

I was so concerned about your message to my friend, David, from HM Courts & Tribunal Service and the Home Office earlier today that I feel obliged to pay the traffic violation charge on his behalf as failure to do so may hinder his work permit and best endeavours to return to work next week with all of the disabled, blind, taste-challenged and disadvantaged children in the North Western tip of Southern Africa.

Please take whatever monies you need from my personal account which I detail below. You are assured that I have many funds available to me as I have a great nephew in Tristan de Cunha who has recently inherited a vast family inheritance following a tragic accident last year when his mother spontaneously self-combusted at a large family gathering. Needless to say we were all devastated but, sometimes, from tragedy, good things come along and your message is such a thing because I trust and have faith in you. I have already transferred the activity amount of £10,000 to Barclays Tristan de Cunha (Glue Terrace Branch) to ensure that I will shortly obtain my family fortune.

My bank: Manchesterford Building Society
Account: 123456789
Sort Code: 69-69-69
Name: Mr Main Mug
Security Code: 999

Please take as much money as you need as soon as you can. If you need more I will happily send it when my family fortune is in my personal bank account.

Finally, my wife only asks for only one thing. She would be eternally grateful to you if you would send a photograph of your huge Moroccan willy, mainly as a gesture of good faith and to show that you are indeed our very good friend and a true benefactor in these most terrible of times.

We are truly indebted to you and thank you for your correspondence. May God shine all of his light on you.

Mr A **bleep**
Scunthorpe
England
UK
(Next to Europe)

[Philip5324]

I want to alert everyone about a scam I encountered yesterday.  The scammer somehow obtained my email address and entered it on the BT login page then requested to reset the password. At the same time he telephoned me claiming to be from BT and saying that my neighbours were using my Broadband. He said that he had just sent me an email and when I checked, there was an email from BT  with a PIN and a password change request. He asked for the PIN, which like an idiot I gave him  as the combination of the phone call and the email made it look plausible. He then used the PIN to access my BT account and was of course able to then state my name, address, BT account number and monthly direct debit amount. All of which made it sound even more plausible. He then asked me to go into the Windows menu and start typing a command (cmd netstat), at this point I became very suspicious and told him I wanted to phone him back on a BT number. He then started to sound agitated and said that it was a valid call as how else could he know my personal information? I then rang off, checked by BT account and of course, the password didn't work as the scammer had changed it. I quickly changed it back and reported the matter to BT. Please be aware. These people are vermin.

[syoung76]

Exact same as I had as reported above on 08/10.

I was fortunate enough to never give them the PIN, had several attempts, ended up changing the email address on my BT account too. They stopped calling after that.