Scam call today

[HHGTTG]

Had a call today from number beginning with 01825 and claiming  to be Openreach, I think ( I did not take the call initially). They knew my post code and said that they were giving me 20% discount on my service starting next month and explained that this would reflect in my bills in the future. I fell for this (Doh!) but did not give any personal bank details etc and asked why did they not communicate by my usual email address. They said they will be sending me a letter but although they knew my postcode they haven't got my address. I am slightly worried as to what could happen. As I said I did not give out any bank details etc. Hmmm.

[andydenyer]

The first red flag is that Openreach do not deal directly with the public. You are a customer of BT, not Openreach. So Openreach do not, and cannot, save you money on your bill.

When you said you 'fell for it', what did the caller ask you to do?

It could be that they were just getting you to confirm certain details such as your name and post code. Some scammers gradually build up a picture of someone with info gleaned from various sources.

I think the main advice I can give is to be on your guard and keep a close eye on your bank and credit card balances. Also worth checking your credit score.

The other thing I can advise is getting handsets with TrueCall built in.  Anyone not in your phone list has to announce who they are before the call is put through and you get the opportunity to accept or reject the call (or send to answerphone if you're not sure). I bought these for my parents after they nearly fell for a scam a good few years ago now and I can count the number of unwanted calls received since then on the fingers of less than one hand!

[HHGTTG]

They knew my postcode that's all. No bank details or BT account details were exchanged. I somehow felt things were not genuine.

[WSH]

So long as you didn't download anything or give them access to your systems then, it should be fine.

[HHGTTG]

It was a phone call to my landline phone so I did not download anything or give them access, therefore to anything i.e bank details or BT account.

[Peter_W · Accepted solution]

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience here, @HHGTTG 

We're glad to hear that you didn't share any details here - if you're at all worried about any aspect of your account security though, it's worth updating your passwords for your email account and My BT.

Also as @andydenyer rightly said, you will never get calls from Openreach about accounts and billing; they aren't customer facing and any queries like this would always come direct from your ISP.

You can also find more details on the numbers that our genuine sales partners will call from here:

BT’s Appointed Specialist Partners | BT

Finally if you still have the details of the number, you can report this to us directly here:

Report a scam call | BT Help

Peter

[HHGTTG]

@Peter_W 

Thanks Peter. 

I have already filled in the necessary details on the BT help link re Scams you provided above. I did this yesterday soon after the event. I have checked details in myBT and my bank and everything is OK at the moment.

Regards