Indian call centre scammers are targeting BT customers BT customers in the UK have been targeted by scammers in India – with one person reporting they were defrauded for thousands of pounds this week. The issue appears to have been going on for more than a year. Some customers said the fraudsters knew their personal details. One reader got in touch to report that his father-in- …
Earlier in the year while I still had BT broadband, I received a call one day, supposedly from a BT engineer saying there was a problem with my broadband, which was news to me as it seemed to be working just fine. He quoted my name and BT account number as verification he was legit. He had an English accent rather than an Indian one, and initially at least seemed somewhat plausible. He asked me to put my router directly into the master socket, which it already was, but he was quite insistent that I went to check it. As the master socket was in the attic and required a step ladder to access it I refused, but he was quite insistent that I checked it. Smelling a rat I hung up and did a 1471. I googled the number and it came up as a legitimate BT's customer service number!
I phoned BT directly and got passed around several people in a call centre (presumably in India based on the accents) before I got passed to someone in the UK. No, a BT engineer hadn't called me. There was not a problem with my broadband. They said that despite my 1471 check, that it wasn't their service number that had called me and they offered to block the real calling number. The fake engineer never called back (or was blocked), but I surmised his end game would probably have been to give him remote access to my computer so he could install malware or commit other fraud.
Interesting that BT allow scammers to fake their number to look like BT's service number!
My solution which has worked with 100% efficiency so far :
Them : Hello, Mr Person, I am calling from ....
Me : How did you get this number? This number is unlisted and is part of the Witness Relocation Program. Please hold the line for 30 seconds caller while we trace this call and verify that the location you are ringing from is on the list of allowed contacters and dispatch law enforcement officers to your location if it is not
I usually dont get to the end of my spiel before they have hung up.
Back in January this year an Indian 'Scam' Centre contacted me about my BT account. They knew I had an account with BT, my address and my name. At the time the only organisation that knew I was at that address was BT.
As it happened, I'd been in a long running dispute with BT as my routers wifi was broken ( ethernet was ok and I was running an old laptop as a router to give my household wifi) and they weren't replacing it, so I was calling ( and being called by BT engineers) regularly. So when the call started I was quite receptive because, yes there was an issue with my internet. Of course once they asked me to download software I knew this was not 'above board' and told them so, they even tried the old 'get your manager'.
The second the call was over ( I hung up ) I called BT to report this, they didn't even log my report. 2 Days later I spoke to an engineer who told me no report was logged and advised me to make a report by email. This was also done ( and ignored, as I chased this up). I would Suggest BT clearly knew about a data leak and has tried to cover it up, and also knows of the scammers and has chosen to ignore this.
As an aside, eventually I tried BT's online 'chat with an engineer' type thing, this was actually quite good, as by this point I'd been through their 'support' process so many times I knew it by heart, could go over the issue, and all their steps to the point where the operators third statement was 'ok I can see that your router has a hardware fault we'll send out a new one....
oh, and in regards to this ( and some comments on here), we didn't own a phone for the landline, so I'd given my mobile number to BT as my contact number, and this was the phone I was contacted on....
This was a number I'd had for all of 2 months and had given to no-one ( literally, people contact me via the interwebs)
Again this is to point out that the information given to these people must have come from BT....
They told me I would save money moving to a broadband business package... that fucking little shit in sales never told me that I would go from unlimited infinity 2 to a 50gb/month infinity 1! Even after I specifically asked him "nothing will change to my broadband, will it?" which he confirmed!
Took months to sort out what that fucking little shit in the sales department did, it was some young British guy working on commission to get people to change their account package who could only see £ signs not people.
The guys at the Indian call centers were fucking useless in trying to fix the situation, eventually I got passed onto a nice Scottish woman who instantly saw I should never have been moved to the business package in the first place.
Like I said replying to another comment, anyone calls about saving you pounds, DON'T. It may be legitimate but it also may mean worse terms. You can't make a decision on the spot then without having possession of all the facts, so don't bother.
If you want to save money, do it and call them in your own time, once you have thoroughly researched the savings.
A few years ago BT would have Option 1, Option 2, Option 3 as call plans and I was on Option 1 (the minimum "pay for all calls as you make them" one. They used to also subdivide the call plans so that you could get Option 2 (the "evenings and weekends are free" one) for the same price as Option 1, so I was getting calls where BT was "helpfully" offering me Option 2 for the same price. Of course I said "no" and I further looked at the exact terms - this Option 2 "same price" one would have meant that I would have been recontracted for a year AND it'd be a rolling contract so I wouldn't be able to get out of it except in a very short timeframe just before it rolled over, every year. My Mum got caught by that one, which was an issue years later when she tried to get out of it, and couldn't
It is possible to string them along for three and a half hours...possibly longer, but to be honest after that length of time it was starting to get a bit boring for me and I gave up on the job.
A hands-free phone with good battery life is essential. A mute function is useful as well, as it avoids any tell-tale background noises while you take a loo break.
Of late, I've started answering unsolicited/unknown calls with a half interested "Hello, fraud squad". That normally kills off the accident claim and PPI lot inshore.
If offshore, I then insist my name is DI Burnside of Sun Hill... Usually they lose interest long before I tire of going full Saarf Lundan rozzer down the blower at 'em, occasionally barking at imaginary Tosh Lynes to put the kettle on.
I had half of Sun Hill on my doorstep one morning - they used to use my manor* a lot for filming.
When they were driving the prop cars to and from location, they'd have black tape covering the word 'Police'. The first time I saw them I thought 'that's a piss-poor attempt at an unmarked police car'.
*getting into the vernacular there.
Real Police cars are even harder to spot when not in service, they have a post-it sized note to the effect put on the windscreen ( I used to deliver the cars from the Vauxhall Fleet depots to the Police workshops)
Great fun doing 65 down the middle lane of the motorway and DARING anyone to overtake you.
I've had several "BT bvroadband" support calls of late, which is interesting as I don't have BT broadband. If I'm in the mood for a laugh and not pushed for time I like to play along with their game.
One caller tried to tell me there was a problem with my BB running slow and we got as far as them telling me there was a problem at the exchnage and they had replaced the DLM module. As a result my router was now still on its default channel of 936 and I needed to change it to channel 875 to get it working properly. (yes, i did write it all down!) It had taken about 20 minutes to get this far into the conversation and I was fascinated to see where it was going, but the line got dropped from their end....
Another time I was told there was a problem with my router and could i look at the front to see what LED's were lit. "Five" i said (I couldn't be bothered to go into the cupboard to look, but I think it normally has 5). She sounded a bit confused then, and asked what colour they were, which was a strange question as they are all green. When I replied green, she was even more confused and said she would have to pass me to a supervisor. That's when we got cut off. I thought it was strange that they would ask how many lights were on my router as they had no idea what router I have - but realised afterwards most folks on BT probably have whatever router it is that BT supply by default.
On another occasion I was told there was a problem with my computer. I managed to string them a long quite abit, and when I asked which computer, I was continually told its was "my computer", which later became "my windows computer". Eventually he asked me how many computers I had connected and switched on, to which I said 17 (*rough guess, may not be accurate), and he hung up.
And another who was asking me what kind of computer I had. "A black one" I kept saying, eventually he said it will say something like "HP" or "Acer" or "Dell" on it. Ah - I said, it says "Raspberry Pi" on the case. After a few seconds I got a very confused "Raspberry Pi?" Yes, I replied, "It's like an Apple Pie, but with raspberries". Ah, he said, you have an Apple? "No - A Raspberry Pi, probably more like a banana pie than an Apple Pie". At which point he hung up.
A few years ago it was "Microsoft Support" or "Windows Support", but now it always seems to be "BT Support"
I guess we're lucky its only low level things like telecoms that have released our personal information into the offshore workforce and we're seeing only a few thousand pounds fraud.
Imagine how much worse it could be if it were the big banks who had all these offshore workers with direct access to the exact financial status and personal details of individuals and companies...
Fraud can take place anywhere in the world. It takes place here in the UK as well as every other country. However there is a relative value proposition at work - the relative profit of committing fraud in India is much greater than in the UK, therefore its more likely to occur more widely at much lower levels. That cheap offshore labour might not be so cheap if your fraud incidence rises.
This makes me want to build an OS/2 VM just for the fun of letting them loose in it. I'd be amazed if they even knew what it was. I could pretend to be working for MSFT and pretend it was a preview build of Windows 11...
Except I'm not on BT and haven't ever had a call like this, so that's spoiled my fun. :(
I have a Truecall unit. That screens my calls without me getting involved. Pretty much all cold callers give up when they hear the message. Calls from numbers on the whitelist go straight through. I believe there's a couple of BT phones that include the technology and Sky has something called 'Shield' that I believe is free as part of their telephone service.
My BY cordless phones have this inbuilt - branded as "BT Call Guardian". Works very well and I now get zero calls of this ilk. Non-whitelisted numbers hear an announcement and are asked to speak their name. Only then do the phones ring and I get the option to answer or reject the call.
However, I'd been getting lots on my mobile, so I searched for an Android App that would do the same sort of screening. (Naffly entitled) "Mr Number" seems be doing an excellent job. When first installed it went through my recent call history and correctly identified almost all of the scam calls I'd been receiving.
I like messing with the scammers. "Oh my computer is leaking a virus. You say you're from Microsoft? Oh you're on the main campus? Let's talk this over. What's your building and office number, I'll have a shuttle there in a few minutes. **CLICK**"
Or "who is this? what is your operating number?"
I always answer with a terse 'hello - your PIN please', on the basis that anyone I want to speak to will ring my mobile or speak to me in person. The responses have ranged from instant hang-up to 'err... 1234?' occasionally I have to repeat 'your PIN, please' Getting the first question in puts most callers on the back foot, especially as the call is evidently going no further until they supply a valid PIN, I'm sure that some of those supplied are actual card PIN's by the guarded way they reveal them. In case you're wondering, in the event of a wrong PIN, my response is simply to disconnect the call (I have never chosen a correct PIN, so by default, they are all wrong).
Everyone in a while you pick up your phone and there is this unbelievable fast talking person after they get you to stay on the line for about 5 minutes, they then will start talking about your brothers and sisters with her name and they know what age they are, they go into extremely detailed discussion of your life and the amount of DEBT you have and about how much you owe in credit card debt. They also know how much you owe on your house and how they could get you a better rate.
I listened to one for two minutes he thought he had me fooled. I hung up on him, I don't have time for such foolishness. These guys are *GOOD*.
If you want the personal touch you can call these 1-800 (toll-free) and talk with a person that has a special talent and she will read you like you have never been read before. These girls are scary, They also get $5 a minute so they keep you on the line as long as possible.I am told these women are excellent talks and before long your phone bill is-logging with charges, first its $5 then connect time j
I very rarely use my home phone, except I keep it for distant friends and relatives who use the number to occasionally call. However, recently I have used the phone to call out, vet's, doctor etc.,, and without exception, I have had spam calls call back for a week or more afterwards. Yes, I am on TPS (which is totally useless anyway) but I also back it up with a Truecall gadget which means I can stop o'seas calls and find out who calls, supposedly local. (real o'sea callers have an extra code to get the phone to ring)
After being closely involved with a work colleague being scammed - first alerting her to it, and ccd in all bank discussions - it is VERY obvious that all these frauds are based on insiders within banks and utilities passing out personal information. Plus, I heard of another recent case that almost went as far as prosecution, then the CPS inexplicably "lost" all evidence. I think we need to accept that we now live in an extremely corrupt society. It wasn't always like this.
On the TPS list, and during 30 months with EE just the odd few calls we could blacklist. After 4 months with BT, and ExDiretctory, and still on TPS list, been getting 12+ unwanted/silent/spam calls per evening, now reducing since blacklisting all international and 'unknown' callers and adding numbers to the list weekly ... I think, no CONVINCED, that BT , or someone with access to their customer DB is selling this info . And the only thing I can do is once again switch providers at the end of the contrick. Although this process can be sweetened with new customer financial/value incentives, its fundamentally wrong that I need to get on this little merry go round every year, because the operator of one of the country's critical national infrastructure treats data security as a joke!
I had a call from a chap from Microsoft; insisted I had a problem with my laptop and was trying to get me to download and install a remote control piece of software to help diagnose the problem. I said his procedure for donwloading it didn't work - was it a problem that I was using a Mac? "Ah, hold one minute" he said .. click, brrrrrrrr.
How is this essentially any different from the years-old scam where they claim to be Microsoft and tell you your computer has been sending error reports and they just need you to give them control of it? Seriously, anyone who is dumb enough to fall for this deserves what's coming to them.
They continue to try it on with me, but as I don't use Windows, and I don't use BT for my broadband, it's rather obviously a scam.
I did a report on this ages ago, I contacted BT and got shot down in flames, despite 3 of my customers reporting slow internet, then with 24 hours they got calls back from fake BT people who knew all about their issues with the broadband - you cannot tell me that some BT staff are not selling or giving those details to a 3rd party, maybe friends or family too!
This is my post from August last year:
http://www.mobilepcrescue.co.uk/new-scam-from-people-pretending-to-be-from-b-t-etc/
This has been going on since BT connected their phones to the internet and outsourced their call centres to India. One of the first scams was, "I'm an IBM/Microsoft engineer and we can see a problem with your computer, please give me your passwords and let us log on to fix it".
I got so fed up of it that I dreaded hearing an Indian voice on my phone and put the phone down. Later on I would mention, "sex and travel" but they did not catch on to that. Eventually BT started selling phones with caller ID and nuisance call blocking. These are an absolute must. As a much older person in a prosperous village we are a target for all types of chancers.
It is a hazard of BPO.
The identity theft is rampant with call center workers thinking Limey is rich and so a little credit card fraud won't hurt them. There are whole call centers setup to scam westerners.
It will only stop when it is made to hurt, something like the government in the offending area and the corporation that hired the service being made to pay a fine plus restitution.
It's quite clear that many large institutions do not protect the data properly.
Westpac Bank Australia,
My father in-law had an account with them Eg. Mr. Smith As he was not internet savvy, we added my personal email address for any required emails. It was the only place we ever associated my email with his name.
A while later came the typical grammatically challenged phishing email, To: jones at jones.com
Dear Mr Smith, Your account... I still have it on file somewhere.
Changed banks after that... if they can't look after an email address, how can they be trusted with money.
Not many may think this, but back in the day when flat caps and clogs were normal attire, data was sold by the company serving. Customer data is money. They don’t care who they sell to as long as they make ca$h. O.k. It could be data centre employees, or simply poor security of Customer data i.e. some spam head has bought their photos in on a usb stick to show Carley and Treyvon who sits next to them.....ooo look at the puppy pics I have just loaded along with a nasty worm from that freeware site who prints photos for ‘free’ mwahahahahahaha.....data sucked live from the system.....
Education is lacking and common sense moreso. Crikey the airheads these days walk into street furniture because they cannot get off social media so don’t expect this load of cannon fodder to safeguard your data anytime soon......
Got a scam mobile phone contract call a few weeks back
Managed to piss the caller off so much he told me I was "the rudest person he'd spoken to that day". He rang off when I said that if he stayed on the line he'd find I was the rudest he'd speak to all week.......
He tried calling again a few hours later, asking for the company director. So I told him the "director" said "F*** Off". Not heard from him again
2 months ago, I got call from local number with automated announcement claiming to be BT network provider, and using TEAMVIEW managed to access my computer, and attempted to SCAM & locked my PC. When I rang the local number, it was dead number.
On 25/5/18, I got call from 08000 988 674, claiming to BT network provider. When I mentioned word 'scam', the caller hanged up the call. Can anybody investigate where this call is coming from.
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