Telephone scam from Shell Energy

peter021072

Beware of a call from 0330 094 5231 claiming to be affiliated to Shell Energy.  They will be insistent they have the right to call then say we'll take you through security.

Shell confirmed this, and on 'who called me' it says

"The overall rating for telephone number 0330 094 5231 is Negative. There have been 41,956 phone lookups and 200 comments relating to this number. On this page: 10 Users rated it as Harassing, 5 Users rated it as Unknown, 4 Users rated it as Dangerous and 1 User rated it as Safe."

Bacman

Never, without exception, go through "security checks" unless you are POSITIVE the caller is who they say they are and are people you deal with, not a cold caller or scam caller wanting your details. One way is to tell them to email you with their request, giving them a phrase to use and call you back when done; if they are legit they will do that. If they "want to confirm you email address" then they are not legit (or will simply hang up at the time as they know they are rumbled). If they are genuine after all then they will have your email address...

Emsobell

I always insist on calling firms back. Also note, it is possible to clone phone numbers now, hence further reasons to just hang up and call back directly. 

Bacman

...after you have a dialling tone as if they are still on the line you'll be dialling and it will still be them that are on the line.

Gerry1

Bacman said:

...after you have a dialling tone as if they are still on the line you'll be dialling and it will still be them that are on the line.

A dialling tone is no guarantee that you'll get the number you dialled - the scammers stay on the line and just play a recording of the dialling tone to you.  Wait a minute or two to make sure the clear has cleared, or press Recall to get a genuine dialling tone.

QrizB

Gerry1 said:

Bacman said:

...after you have a dialling tone as if they are still on the line you'll be dialling and it will still be them that are on the line.

A dialling tone is no guarantee that you'll get the number you dialled - the scammers stay on the line and just play a recording of the dialling tone to you.  Wait a minute or two to make sure the clear has cleared, or press Recall to get a genuine dialling tone.

... or use a different phone. If called on your land line, call your bank on your mobile (or someone else's moble), or vice-versa.

Gerry1

QrizB said:

Gerry1 said:

Bacman said:

...after you have a dialling tone as if they are still on the line you'll be dialling and it will still be them that are on the line.

A dialling tone is no guarantee that you'll get the number you dialled - the scammers stay on the line and just play a recording of the dialling tone to you.  Wait a minute or two to make sure the clear has cleared, or press Recall to get a genuine dialling tone.

> ... or use a different phone.

Not quite, the critical point is that it needs to be a different number: an extension phone on the same landline wouldn't count.  That said, most telcos will drop the incoming call within a few seconds of you hanging up, so you probably wouldn't have had time to move from the living room to the kitchen or whatever.  Better safe than sorry !

The timeout used to be six minutes, which was very convenient e.g. if you answered a call in the kitchen and wanted to continue with it in the study, but the telcos changed the parameter after the scam had become widespread.

> If called on your land line, call your bank on your mobile (or someone else's mobile), or vice-versa.  Agreed.

greenguppie

peter021072 said:

Beware of a call from 0330 094 5231 claiming to be affiliated to Shell Energy.  They will be insistent they have the right to call then say we'll take you through security.

Shell confirmed this, and on 'who called me' it says

"The overall rating for telephone number 0330 094 5231 is Negative. There have been 41,956 phone lookups and 200 comments relating to this number. On this page: 10 Users rated it as Harassing, 5 Users rated it as Unknown, 4 Users rated it as Dangerous and 1 User rated it as Safe."

Unfortunately, it is very easy to clone any caller display number.

Worse still, in this case the perpetrator appears to have cloned the genuine telephone number of an authentic smart meter installation company, and one that Shell uses.
What gives it away is they have cloned the wrong number.

The number is a genuine number that belongs to SMS plc.

But the number is an incoming number only, and specifically for Shell customers.
SMS plc supply smart meter installations for a range of energy suppliers (although it seems only Good Energy, Octopus, OutFox The Market, Peoples Energy, Shell & UW are still trading)

Their outgoing number is always 0330 0414777.

https://www.sms-plc.com/smart-homes/book-an-installation/