Talk Talk gave me a Scammers number

UncleZen

OK, not me, by my mum, here's the story...

1. She was having some technical problems sending Email. I said this was probably a TT service issue and that she should raise a support ticket. Anyhow she couldnt find out how to, so she phone their sales number; 0870 444 1820.
2. The sales guy said call 0808 159 8763 and ask for the Outlook Express Help desk. So she did. The guy that answered said he worked for My Tech Guru's (whether it was true or not, I dont know). He then went on to suggest that she might be having problems sending Emails - She said yes.
3. He took a name and number and she was put through to another support guy who told her to enter www DOT support DOT me into her browser. This screen as a field to enter a 6 digit code. He supplied the 6 digit code, a popup appeared which she said yes to and all of a sudden the guy had remoted into her computer.
4. Similar MO to other scams then follows, he clicks around and shows her the event viewer and points out all the warnings and errors and says that these are the cause of her not being able to send Emails.
5. He then offers to fix this for £399.99
6. She hangs up.

Now, I just tried this, well, the bit up to entering the 6 digit number. So I know the MO and number is correct.

What puzzles me is how/why did someone at TT give her this number?
Any thoughts anyone?
Obviously Im slightly concerned that he may have dropped a virus/trojan/other-nasty onto the computer, so I'll be doing an offline virus scan using Windows Defender Offline at the earliest opportunity

Figment

Are you sure he said My Tech Gurus and not Geek Squad?

closed

step 3 - did someone (seemingly) ring back, or was she tranferred?

UncleZen

Figmant:
Definately My Tech Gurus, he said they have an office in Ealing (google it, they do).

Closed:
she was transferred, I didnt say ring back.

closed

you did say "took name and number", which is why I asked for clarification, as the scammers are calling 1000's of people randomly per day, if this happened in the middle of waiting for a call back, it may lead someone to assume they were connected.

The Question should be directed at TT really

UncleZen

Agreed, sorry, on reflection my description was misleading.
Ive x-posted on the Internet board for the TT rep to pickup.

andy2004

I would suggest downloading malwarebytes and running a scan on the computer, mind you to be really safe I would personally use the built in recovery software and take the pc back to factory fresh and reinstall any software after that or at least to the last back up i did before doing the remote.
As for the £399.99 she should have instead of putting the phone down said, i'd rather go and buy an new computer than pay you that.
Sounds like the scams that are mentioned on here, and talk talk should be fined for giving out / redirecting calls to these people. any bets the talk talk was indian and he redirected you / your mother to one of his relations.
If it where me, i cancel my contract with talktalk and go elsewhere, stating the reason for leaving was being put through to these scammers.
maybe you should also go to the watchdog website and add a new story there, so they could explain themselves on tv as to why.

LucianH

UncleZen wrote: »

Agreed, sorry, on reflection my description was misleading.
Ive x-posted on the Internet board for the TT rep to pickup.

Would really appreciate a post detailing the response you get for TT - there's a lot of TT users out here and we need to hear their explanation.

Thanks

UncleZen

Well, I doubt if they'll reply to the post

Figment

suggest you post your question here >> http://www.talktalk.co.uk/community/