Virgin phone call re viruses

DebbieR

My parents have Virgin broadband which is registered in my dad's name. A couple of days ago my mum got a phone call from a withheld number telling her that she had several viruses on her computer and if she turned her computer on the person phoning would look at her computer and remove them for her. My mum, bless her, is not computer literate at all(she's 70 this year), but she did think it was a bit suspicious that the person calling used her full name, even though the internet is registered to my dad. She told them(truthfully) that my brother works with computers and keeps the computer up to date security wise but the caller got quite annoyed with her and my mum put the phone down on them. She said the caller sounded foreign. Is it possible that they were ringing from Virgin? I assume they were going to do some sort of remote connection which is what worries me. Can they actually do anything underhand if they do this? I thought she should ring Virgin up and ask but she's a bit reluctant to do this.

wallbash

Is it possible that they were ringing from Virgin?

Highly unlikely, some sort of scam in the making ,

quote .. a withheld number , thats the sign of a scam!

Darksun

I've heard of scams similar to this, they usually claim to be calling from Microsoft or other organisations, never heard of them claiming to be from an ISP before.

They get the victims to install spyware, keyloggers or otherwise compromise the security of the system. I've also heard of them demanding payment for their 'services' at the end of the phone call.

Looks like no harm was done in your case, but I think it would be worth contacting Virgin and letting them know what's happened, that way they can warn their customers.

Nilrem

Aye, it's almost certainly a variant on the scam where they claim to be from MS.
I don't think VM or any other current ISP would ring out of the blue to sort out a virus, without you contacting them first.


From memory the only time VM (or NTL/BY before them) would take uninvited action for an infected PC, was if the machine had a specific type of worm, in which case what used to happen was you'd get stuck in a "walled garden", where the only page you'd get was one giving thre reason you were stuck with only a single page, instructions on how to get rid of it (and I think a download link), and the tech support number in case you were having problems following the instructions.
IIRC that was for the "blaster" worm in about 2002, and even then only because the number of infected PC's was causing major network issues (I was at a big LAN party at the time, and it caused them major issues with just 800 or so people on the network, so I can imagine the problems it caused ISP's with millions of people)..

iamcornholio

Definately not from Vermin ......... they don't do anything for free

DebbieR

Thanks for the replies. Luckily my mum thought something was suspicious so she put the phone down. Funnily enough my sister who's a care worker has just told me that one of her clients, who is also a pensioner, had a similar experience this week. He's with BT broadband and was experiencing trouble getting onto the internet so he rang up and was put through to the technical department. The technician connected remotely and told him that he was having problems because his computer was so old and it would cost about £200 if he wanted to sort it out!
After saying he couldn't afford it and putting the phone down he got a call not long after from someone saying they were from BT and could sort his computer out for £130. He gave them his credit card details and they said they'd send someone round to sort him out. He then realised that it sounded suspicious and rang his credit card company who are looking into it - the transaction is showing as originating from India! I wonder if these fraudsters are deliberately targeting pensioners who are more likely to trust people and don't have technical savvy?

spud17

Sounds similar to this long running thread.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1613667

DebbieR

Thanks for the link to the other thread. Looks like it's the same company!