MyBT - BT account hacked?

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

As per message 12. You need to change every password that you use and in particular if you use the same password on multiple accounts.

You also need to check that there are no forwarding addresses set up in your email account.

As regards what the scammer knew about you.  

You have probably posted your name, address, post code and phone number(s) on any number of web sites such as Amazon or other retail sites.

As regards the PIN and email and text being sent to you. That is done by BT when ever you try to change your password using the forgotten password link on your email or MyBT accounts.

The scammers know this and if the have your BT email address, which will no doubt have been used all over the Internet, they simply try to log into your email account and click the forgotten password link and you are sent the PIN.

They immediately call you and stated the have just sent you a PIN to verify that they a genuine BT representative. You then supply them with the PIN to verify to them that you are the recipient of the PIN and they now have access to your account using the PIN.

When you asked for the account number, if you had already given them the PIN they would have accessed your account and been able to recite that back to you without any problem.

You can check to see if your email address has been subject to any data breaches using this link

   Have I Been Pwned: Check if your email has been compromised in a data breach

[johnaclark]

Thanks, DanielS - I did get locked out once a couple weeks ago - I may be getting paranoid. My bluetooth mouse has been dropping out of contact several times today as well - but it's prone to doing that!

[johnaclark]

Simples! If we all realised how they could do it we'd be less likely to fall for it. I'm afraid I'm in the demographic of OAPs who lose our life savings to phone scams - but I'm also in the demographic who started our computing with an Amstrad PCW - in the days when if your disk drive failed you replaced the rubber band, and if you wanted a program to do something, you wrote it yourself. But I soon lost touch, when I got a laptop that could be plugged into the Internet, it's all a sealed black box to me now. But I'm also of a generation that didn't grew up with a telephone - I remember having to make my first telephone call at about the age of 18 - dad took me down to the nearest phone box to show me how to do it. The first phone in the family home was installed to keep us in touch with the hospice where my mother was dying. So I still panic when the phone rings, and go to pieces when an unfamiliar voice tells me I have computer problems. I only hear half of what they say and misinterpret the rest! (By the way, none of my email addresses show up as leaked. I actually rarely use my btinternet.com address - the only message on it in the last couple of months was the one from BT with the PIN number inspired by the scammers.)

[gg30340]

No legitimate company will call you to tell you there is a problem with your Internet or computer or ask you to install anything or give them access to you computer. The only time that might happen is if you call them to report a fault and even then I would not allow it.

Treat any cold callers as scammers and hang up. If they are genuine they will call you back. Ask for a reference number and tell them you will call them back. Use a trusted number to do that, not one that they supply to you.

Never give out any PIN number unless it is in response to something you initiated.

Age has nothing to do with it. More young folk get scammed than the elderly.