I am a TalkTalk customer for TV, phone and broadband. At 8:30am this morning I received a call purporting to be from TalkTalk warning me of internet problems which would need access to my computer to fix.
The lady who called knew my name and quoted my account number as proof she was calling from TalkTalk. If she hadn’t been so pushy I might have fallen for it, but when I challenged her on why she was calling unannounced and to email me with the details so I could respond, she hung up.
I reported the call to TalkTalk’s fraud line and they’ve logged the call for investigation.
My problem with the whole affair is not the scam call itself, as I get those a lot and deal with them forcefully. It’s what the scammers knew about me. What I find particularly disturbing is they had my account details, so presumably may well have access to other information that TalkTalk holds, such as my bank details.
The second is that TalkTalk knows its database has been compromised, as reported by Charles Arthur in the Guardian on the 5 December, but it has not informed its customers. There is a general warning I found when I searched the TalkTalk site but it has not sent out emails or any other communication on this specific issue. PK, Newport, South Wales
This scam has been going on for some time – in the past, callers said they were calling from Microsoft and then charged users £100 to fix their computers. In December, TalkTalk told the Guardian it was investigating whether its customer database had been leaked after more than 100 customers said they had received calls from Indian-based scammers quoting their names, addresses and account numbers.
Suspicions have been raised that a data leak could have come from a call centre used by TalkTalk in India, although the UK internet service provider, with more than four million customers, said it had “no concrete evidence of a data breach”.
The company said: “We take information security very seriously, and we emailed all TalkTalk account holders to warn them about phone and email scams, and tell them about our new scam calls and emails guide. We are committed to keeping customers safe and promise never to call a customer and ask for their bank account details or ask customers to download software.”
We are TalkTalk customers and, like you, didn’t get the email the company says it sent out.
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