Watch out for broadband warranty scam
Wednesday 18 June 2008 15:08:05 by Andrew Ferguson
Scams are unfortunately a part of life and this latest one while perhaps not the most original is worth warning people about.
Details of the scam are on the North West Evening Mail website. The scam revolved around a company phoning someone claiming that their broadband warranty was about to run out, and that it can be renewed now for £9.99 rather than the usual £29.99. The caller proceded to verify customer details but as can often happen they do not have any detail apart from perhaps a name and incomplete address, thus they are fishing for more information.
Mrs McGerty ended the call when the caller started chasing for switch card details, and contacted the newspaper. As ever the general advice of never volunteering information to cold callers is very important. In this case if credit/debit card details had been given it may not have simply being £9.99 vanishing from the account, but once an initial transaction worked further sums may have been taken.
If a call appears to be from a company you actually do have dealings with, take details of the caller and ask what number you can call them back on, and then do not use that phone number, but rather look up on old bills for the appropriate number or use the companies website to find their contact details.
As for the broadband warranty, we are not aware of any firm offering one. There are service enhancements available such as Total Care which increase the speed that faults are dealt with but these will be part of your normal monthly billing and generally are only sold on connections aimed at business users.
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Just to repeat the usual warnings...
NO-ONE will phone to verify any personal details, and any offering of these is discouraged - if they do need any info, it will by letter, asking you to visit the place!
even online, you wil be told you have a mesasge at your registered email - note it is not mentioned, and you will have to send a code from that email, to veriify that it IS you!!
I once had Barclays call me to 'discuss my service'. Before they'd talk they wanted me to confirm my birthday by telling them what it was. I refused and eventually the call ended.
As it happens it was a legitimate (but unwanted) marketing call to discuss my local branch but I was appalled that they asked for personal details on a cold call and disgusted that they felt it justified for some naff marketing.
Proof if it was needed that banks are as clueless as anyone else and give little thought to their customer's private data.
..and by a curious coincedence at about the same time a company that I was trying to buy a laptop from needed to contact me urgently. As They called me but the girl just asked me to go to their website and call the number for customer service.
..so /some/ companies do have a clue. Shame about the banks :-/
This has to be the oldest scam in history... sure the con has evolved over time, but the act of trying to sell something that probably doesnt exist is nothing new, i cant believe some people will still give out details especially in theses identity fraud filled times. The best advice by Andrew in the story is the parargraph that starts "If a call appears to be from a company you actually do have dealings with......"
got the marketing call from barclays bank or someone similiar, cut them off and declined their offers
what is a broadband warranty in any case ? reads like a muppet trying to scam :)
One should be able to visit the scamers place of business with a gallon of petrol and a box of matches. Make this legal there won't be many scamers around.
Barclaycard are not helping - if you get a call from 08453007027 they say they are from Barclaycard (I belive they are) but if you try to get their ID they hang up. Afraid of the Telephone Preference service no doubt. But such an approach means phishers will be copying soon
This appears to be a slight variation of the Sky TV guarantee scam.
Dave