Phishing scam - a warning.

[oldbluefox]

Yesterday I received a telephone call from somebody, I presume, from the Indian continent. He purported to be from TalkTalk and said that my internet account had been corrupted. I told him I was unwilling to do anything unless he could give me proof of who he was. He repeated his name and he was calling from TalkTalk and then proceeded to give my name and full address, telephone number etc. He was very plausible.
He then asked me to examine parts of my computer and showed me where error messages had occurred. He said he would be able to solve the problem and gave me a link for 'infosys' which would have meant giving him access to my computer. Whilst 'infosys' did not show any issues when I Googled it I was unwilling to go any further and when I informed it of this he IMMEDIATELY rang off!!!

I contacted TalkTalk Customer Services and their Fraud department who told me they had received several instances of this nature and it was a phishing scam. They took all the details so they could investigate further.

He sounded very convincing, and whilst I was suspicious, he had plenty of details of my account (which are apparently easy to get hold of) for me to believe he may be genuine. Fortunately I had a good idea of how far I could go and therefore my computer was not compromised.

PLEASE do be careful if you get a similar call. The number they used was 002108240171. Whilst he purported to be from TalkTalk he could easily have said he was from any other provider.

[GillD46]

I have had the same thing saying they were from Windows. We don't actually use Windows! I just told him I had new windows installed recently!! Nor did I want a conservatory!! He rang off too!

[david63]

I've had similar calls in the past purporting to be from Microsoft and if I am in the mood I will give them the run around for a while until they decide that I have wasted enough of their time.

This is another reason why we do not answer calls that we do not recognise.

[Stephen]

I can tell almost immediately if the call is bogus or a sales pitch. I say, "this is a high security number how did you get it, remove it from your data base please or further action will be taken". I'll either get the phone going down straight away or an apology with a reassurance my number will be removed

[Dancing Queen]

I'm like David and rarely answer numbers I don't recognise as it is usually someone trying to sell you something

I'd actually welcome this call from talktalk just so I could ask why they are willing to speak to me as when I ring them they won't discuss anything with me as I'm not the account holder

[Manoverboard]

What do you expect ... do NOT use Talk-Talk is the moral of this story

' Caller display ' helps us to ignore International numbers that we do not recognise, nor reply to.

[qbman1]

I can tell almost immediately if the call is bogus or a sales pitch. I say, "this is a high security number how did you get it, remove it from your data base please or further action will be taken". I'll either get the phone going down straight away or an apology with a reassurance my number will be removed

Next time, tell them you are working under cover with the Fraud Squad

[qbman1]

Yesterday I received a telephone call from somebody, I presume, from the Indian continent. He purported to be from TalkTalk and said that my internet account had been corrupted. I told him I was unwilling to do anything unless he could give me proof of who he was. He repeated his name and he was calling from TalkTalk and then proceeded to give my name and full address, telephone number etc. He was very plausible.
He then asked me to examine parts of my computer and showed me where error messages had occurred. He said he would be able to solve the problem and gave me a link for 'infosys' which would have meant giving him access to my computer. Whilst 'infosys' did not show any issues when I Googled it I was unwilling to go any further and when I informed it of this he IMMEDIATELY rang off!!!

I contacted TalkTalk Customer Services and their Fraud department who told me they had received several instances of this nature and it was a phishing scam. They took all the details so they could investigate further.

He sounded very convincing, and whilst I was suspicious, he had plenty of details of my account (which are apparently easy to get hold of) for me to believe he may be genuine. Fortunately I had a good idea of how far I could go and therefore my computer was not compromised.

PLEASE do be careful if you get a similar call. The number they used was 002108240171. Whilst he purported to be from TalkTalk he could easily have said he was from any other provider.

Afraid my brother-in-law was caught by this self-same scam a couple of months ago. Very costly for him and the bank refused to reimburse him as he gave the scammers access to his account via the pc link you describe

[Stephen]

I can tell almost immediately if the call is bogus or a sales pitch. I say, "this is a high security number how did you get it, remove it from your data base please or further action will be taken". I'll either get the phone going down straight away or an apology with a reassurance my number will be removed

Next time, tell them you are working under cover with the Fraud Squad

That's how rumours start qb

[Lynda and David]

This TalkTalk scam sounds like the one being sent to people about Barclays. I received an e-mail supposedly from Barclays about 3 weeks ago asking me to click on a link to take me to their 'secure' site. As I have never banked with Barclays or held one of their credit cards I forwarded the e-mail to Barclays Fraud department. I'm still waiting for Barclays to reply!

[oldbluefox]

What do you expect ... do NOT use Talk-Talk is the moral of this story

But this scam could apply to any internet provider, bank, etc. Just be careful folks!!!

I have reported phishing emails in the past to the relevant fraud departments. You don't tend to hear from them. I was actually quite surprised that he had left his contact number although I have blocked any 'number withheld' calls so any made that way don't get through anyway.

[Gill W]

If any one wants to stop these sorts of phone calls, I would recommend a new phone with a call guardian system.

We bought a couple of BT8500 phones about 4 months ago. If a call comes through from a withheld number, or a number not on our 'accept' list, the caller has to announce themselves and we can accept or decline the call as we wish. The nuisance calls never bother to announce themselves, so the phone never actually rings if they don't say who they are.

It has cut our nuisance calls to zero

[oldbluefox]

There are options on the TalkTalk website for personalising your phone details. I have included the 'number withdrawn' feature which has stopped all the cold calls.

However a bank, travel agent, dentist, doctor or other business may call you for a variety of legitimate reasons so I am loathe to ignore telephone numbers which I don't immediately recognise. We just have to be cautious in this technological age that there are those who would try to catch you out when your guard is down.

[colwill]

But this scam could apply to any internet provider, bank, etc. Just be careful folks!!!

I have reported phishing emails in the past to the relevant fraud departments. You don't tend to hear from them. I was actually quite surprised that he had left his contact number although I have blocked any 'number withheld' calls so any made that way don't get through anyway.

The problem with blocking 'number withheld' calls is that doctors, hospitals, and many reputable companies withhold their numbers... The local authority I worked for used 'number withheld' and we were often unable to contact people who wished to be called.

[oldbluefox]

I never understood why anybody would want their number to be withheld unless they were up to no good.

[GillD46]

We have always had our number witheld. As a GP my husband was on-call often enough, without being telephoned when he wasn't on-call.

[Manoverboard]

What do you expect ... do NOT use Talk-Talk is the moral of this story

But this scam could apply to any internet provider, bank, etc.

I agree 100% but it did seem, to me, in this instance that your personal data ' may ' have come from the computer controlled by your Network provider. For anybody to specifically know your Network provider plus your name, address, email id and telephone number ( ex Directory ? ) etc smacks on an inside job rather than a random call which most of them use.

[wolfie]

We have always had our number witheld. As a GP my husband was on-call often enough, without being telephoned when he wasn't on-call.

So have we, Gill.

When I was teaching in the same town as I was living in, I didn't want any pupils phoning me as a prank or asking how to complete their homework.

I'm sure our number is out there somewhere, as is our address and probably much more information. I know for a fact that someone actually paid to access a certain record about us. There are some sad people out there.

[GillD46]

We have always had our number witheld. As a GP my husband was on-call often enough, without being telephoned when he wasn't on-call.

So have we, Gill.

When I was teaching in the same town as I was living in, I didn't want any pupils phoning me as a prank or asking how to complete their homework.

I'm sure our number is out there somewhere, as is our address and probably much more information. I know for a fact that someone actually paid to access a certain record about us. There are some sad people out there.

Yes, exactly the same situation. We have a lot of teacher friends and they were all, without exception, ex-directory, for the very reasons you give.

Someone actually paying to access info about you is scary and more than a little sick.

[Silver_Shiney]

This TalkTalk scam sounds like the one being sent to people about Barclays. I received an e-mail supposedly from Barclays about 3 weeks ago asking me to click on a link to take me to their 'secure' site. As I have never banked with Barclays or held one of their credit cards I forwarded the e-mail to Barclays Fraud department. I'm still waiting for Barclays to reply!

Don't hold your breath, Lynda, the only financial body to acknowledge phishing reports is Paypal, as far as I am aware

[Silver_Shiney]

We have always had our number witheld. As a GP my husband was on-call often enough, without being telephoned when he wasn't on-call.

So have we, Gill.

When I was teaching in the same town as I was living in, I didn't want any pupils phoning me as a prank or asking how to complete their homework.

I'm sure our number is out there somewhere, as is our address and probably much more information. I know for a fact that someone actually paid to access a certain record about us. There are some sad people out there.

Are we possibly talking at cross-purposes here? It seems to me that you ladies are referring to "ex-directory" - apologies if I've misunderstood. Ex-directory is not wanting your number published in the phone book, number withheld is punching in a code to suppress the system from transmitting your number when you make a call.

[Dark Knight]

I was caught in a phishing scam
6 hours sailing round Madeira and not a single bloody bite

[Silver_Shiney]

no net gains then?

[GillD46]

We have always had our number witheld. As a GP my husband was on-call often enough, without being telephoned when he wasn't on-call.

So have we, Gill.

When I was teaching in the same town as I was living in, I didn't want any pupils phoning me as a prank or asking how to complete their homework.

I'm sure our number is out there somewhere, as is our address and probably much more information. I know for a fact that someone actually paid to access a certain record about us. There are some sad people out there.

Are we possibly talking at cross-purposes here? It seems to me that you ladies are referring to "ex-directory" - apologies if I've misunderstood. Ex-directory is not wanting your number published in the phone book, number withheld is punching in a code to suppress the system from transmitting your number when you make a call.

As our number is listed Ex-directory, it IS withheld when we make a call. Some friends find it annoying, but I'm afraid that's just the way it is.

[wolfie]

As is ours.

One takeaway that we sometime use will not take calls from withheld numbers so we have to punch in a code just for that one call so that they will accept it.

We don't have to punch in a code to withhold our number, it is always withheld unless I do as above.