Have you been called by a ‘BT technical support’ phone scam?

I received a call purportedly from a BT engineer and the no was not available on my phone. He said he knew I had had problems with my internet speed. He spoke with a slight American accent and called me Ma’am, which isn’t normal language from BT. I said he wasn’t from BT, was a liar, to get a life and get off my phone. I was angry as I almost fell to the Microsoft scam some years ago and only the ineptness of the caller and my breakfast getting cold saved me.

I have just received a call from a woman with an American accent purporting to be BT Systems Engineer advising me that my computer is compromised and that my connection will be terminated. The next person who came on the line spoke with an Indian accent. When I asked when he was calling from he replied that he was from BT Systems Support, I then said that BT is not controlled from the US and that this call is BS, he hung up.

Note that all of the scammers call when we may expect to receive a communication from foreign parts e.g. when BT has closed for the day.

29th March2018
Just had a call from someone purporting to be from BT Openreach Technical Department. He spoke with an ‘Indian’ accent. I suspected it was a scam bur let him do his little speech about slow internet speeds and malware having been downloaded. He wanted me to download a program called cmd. I asked him to repeat a few things and asked him a few questions while I googled ‘BT Openreach Technical Department’. This brought up a selection of headings with the word ‘scam’ in. At this point I told him that I was not going to change anything on my computer and that I had found a lot of records of scams involving people pretending to be from BT Openreach and I started to read out the headings to him. The phone then went dead!
After a minute or so I got another call from a ‘Private number’ which I answered as the previous call has said ‘Withheld’. It was the same caller apologising for having got cut off previously. I told him that I was not going to carry on the call as I had been reading the articles thrown up by google and I proceeded to read one out to him. The phone went dead again and I haven’t received another call. Oddly enough I had a call from BT yesterday afternoon offering me some monthly deals for my mobile phone.

I’ve had several calls during the last few days purporting to be from BT tech support (sounded like India). They said there was a problem with my broadband and they wanted me to log on to my pc,so that they could talk me through the fix. I told them I didn’t have one, only an iPad (I do have one, but I didn’t want to tell them that) and then they said they would send an engineer round. I told them no thanks and hung up. I suspected it was a scam of some kind and did my own broadband check via my BT account and there are no problems with my broadband.

I received a call from a so called BT engineer claiming that there were problems with the IP addresses linked to my server. When I told him that I wasn’t comfortable with discussing anything without verifying it with BT he proceeded to give me a number to verify him on. I played a long and said I would call to verify and to call me back shortly, during this time fortunately I had confirmed with BT that this was a scam. Surprisingly he then called back and said he was waiting for the call to verify him!! I then added that I checked independently through a BT number on the Internet who confirmed it was a scam, this did not put him off and it took me putting the phone down twice and telling him not to call me again to stop the calls. Being a fraud investigator by profession I am naturally suspicious but some people would trust this to be genuine. My advice never use the number given by them to verify the call always look on the Internet and get a number from their site!!

“Gary” phoned claiming to be from BT telling me my broadband would be disconnected unless the malware from would be hackers could be removed. He said he would guide me through the process and I put the phone down. He phoned again a few hours later and I made it clear I did not believe him. The number came up as a 0208 one and was much clearer than usual and “Gary” was much more plausible than the callers I usually hear.

I received a phone call from “BT support team” – to let me know that someone is trying to steal my broadband. The Person had a heavy duty Asian accent. they were working in a call centre – or there was a background noise to simulate that. I chose to finish the phone call immediately before they asked me to give them access to my computer so they can trace who is “stealing my broadband”. I guess as having slow internet connection may be attributed to people ‘stealing your bandwith’ – someone may go for this approach.

Yes – we’ve been having constant calls from an American woman telling us that our BT line is compromised and that from tonight we shall have no internet. She then asks us to press 1 or 2 key on our phone to find out what we should do to avoid this. If you just hold but don’t do anything, she hangs up . it sounds like a recorded call as the voice doesn’t start for an appreciable gap. We have received at least 4 calls from her over the past 2 days.

I keep getting these calls on a daily basis! My record so far is 13 in one day, but at nearly 11.00am today I currently have received 5 so far! They seem to be more direct now urging me to switch on my computer so they can show me where the viruses are that they can apparently detect on my Broadband!! as long as they do not use with-held numbers, then I will keep blocking them one by one on Call Protect.

a long time ago these calls were a plague. But then I joined the Govt TPS (Telephone Preference System) and after a month, calls dropped by 99%. I still get the odd ‘ I see you have had an accident’ – my reply was , how did you see me fall out of bed?
I am being pestered by one scam only, the calls originate from Leicester (016642) so I know who is doing it. Anyway, I called Virgin and explained the situation and asked if it can be blocked. They said if we block it, it will be nationwide. I replied that surely thats a good thing. So the lad I spoke to said he would pass it upstairs – in the meantime he activated caller ID on my phone. when they try again, about once a day, it can see its them and dont answer. This particular scam takes money from the call, no voice contact.

The phoney Microsoft engineers are a thing of the past now.

I have had a similar call today -BT OpenReach claiming that “malicious” malware is being downloaded via my router. I asked the caller (again, lots of background noise in what sounded like an overseas call centre) for a number on which I could call him back – eventually he gave 0800 800 59 59 0 and disconnected the call abruptly. Having googled it, I’m assuming this isn’t a genuine number but I won’t be returning his call.

I have been off work for my Easter break and I am not joking everyday I have had a call from someone claiming to be from virgin media technical support. Today they have called me 3 times. I know it’s a scam but I can’t get rid of these people.

Had a call today from the BT tech support call centre, said he was calling from 84 Upgate street in London, the usual loud busy office noise in the background, it was fairly obvious that it was a scam but It might not be the same for an elderly person. Kept the person on the phone for twenty minutes, fictitious delivery driver at the door, cant find my spectacles, etc. Keeping him occupied saved some poor soul from receiving a call. Got him to bite in the end when he realised he has been scammed himself. Spread the word about these nasty people please!!!!!!