Beware of BELL Impersonators

[Renegade)]

Putting this in General because some cant see the Off Topic...

We had a call last night by some fast speaking, heavily accented woman claiming to be BELL Canada, offering us high speed finally in our area where we havn't been able to get it (rural country). Offering us a great deal on the start up services because of the trouble of not being able to get the service in the past... Well this sounded good, but when they ask for a Credit Card number to put on the account, an account my family has had for 25 years which should already have billing information, thats a big red flag waiving high...

I called Bell today and confirmed there was no call from Bell yesterday, nor is high speed recently been installed in my area.

Its now been reported and the real Bell Canada is going to be doing an investigation.

This is just a formal warning and heads up, if you receive a telemarking call from anyone claiming to be Bell Canada, please write down the time the call came in, get a name of the person calling, and any other information, then call Bell at 310-BELL and report it.

Thank you.

[ShelledPants]

Isn't social engineering fun?

Good heads up though, and good job catching on.

[baker_Jeff]

I get calls from these fuckers all the time. THey have always been VERY unprofessional. Will have to start recording and reporting it.

[Tankdude]

I had a "bell rep" call me one night. When he asked me what services I currently had with bell I told him he should already know what services I had with bell. I then hung up.

[Wh1t3y]

This has been going on for quite some time in my area. The bastards are honestly driving around in a VERY poorly painted "bell" cube van. Well they were until they got busted a couple of months ago. They came to my house three times, and blatantly lead conversations towards credit card information.

I just laughed in their faces and called bell, lol.

[the_griffinator]

lol, a friend of mine got this call, he talked to the guy for 10 minutes telling this "bell" agent that his offers were bogus. The agent hung up on him lol. Good to know, I will be passing this info off to my rural friends.

[Innocent]

In a similar vein, my friend warned me about another phone scam going around. She got a call from the "Canada Do Not Call List" to 'renew' her subscription. Now she's a smart cookie, and this is a Free service, and the guy had such a thick accent she could hardly understand him. Anyway, BIG red flags. So she decides to see how far she can take this. He tells her that she will be called right back with a registration number, and then he will call her back. When he did, he got really upset that she wouldn't give it to him
ANYway, the scam is this -- In order to get a Craigslist or Kijiji listing, you need to have a legitimate phone number. So these scammers are registering using people's numbers, then selling forged and broken merchandise, and the legit owner of the number gets the hassle!

[skalnok]

i had one call a while ago asking how my service with bell is since ive been a long time customer..... i told him to promptly gtfo because im with another company.. so he asked which company lmaooo

yay rogers... eww

[AngelusNex]

i always hang up after "hello i'm with -what ever company-" regardless if its them or an impersonator... in the end either way they'll steal from you.

[FlyGuy]

I had one awhile back from the "Visa and Mastercard Verification Department". - yeah, right...as if Visa and Mastercard would ever work together on anything seeing as they're direct competitors, but that didn't dissuade my (South Asian) accented caller from trying to pry information out of me anyway. I also causually mentioned that Visa and Mastercard do NOT jointly operate a card number "verification service" but he assured me that his call was legit. He even tried to convince me that he was calling from a call centre in Illinois as there was what sounded like typical call centre noise in the background (prob. just a looping tape). Sure buddy...keep shovelling...

He seemed to have a fair bit of information already (partial credit card number even) as well as "unconfirmed address", etc. - DANGER Wil Robinson...DANGER! I felt that at this point I would really like to speak with his "manager" so I asked him for his name, employee number and his manager's name and direct line. That got me a prompt disconnect.

I traced his call to a DDO (direct dial-out only) line in Markham = dead end for me at this point as I don't work for Bell so I can't probe any deeper. Called Visa fraud/theft dept. and reported this phishing scam, suggesting they also notify their counterparts over at MC and also suggested they touch base with Bell Canada to see if they would be interested in investigating from their end.

Haven't heard a peep since...


'Fly

[Crunchmeister]

Well, the way I see it, even if it was a genuine Bell rep instead of a scammer, then you'll be getting robbed bind anyway...

[Blacksmith]

I'm not even with Bell, and these guys keep calling me in the middle of the damn night.

[Mitchell12]

I work in cell phone sales and we actually get calls fairly regularly of people pretending to be our personal Bell or Rogers Retail Reps and even know the Real Reps names! it's become so bad we use our personal phones to contact our reps now.

[esky]

The police put a warning in my local paper about this recently.

[Gunny_McSmith]

haha, same thing happened to me few weeks ago... :P

So, it was around 7-8, we got a call at our house, and my sister picked up the phone, and after 2 minutes, she passed it to me saying " I cant understand a word that he's saying"

So I took the line, and the dude started to talk, with a heavy Indian accent (I was used to listenning to Russell Peters, so I could understand what he was saying....lol)

"Hi, I'm calling on behalf of Bell Canada, and you have been chosen to get a special offer for a cell phone contract, including :
- Unlimited International calls
- Unlimited Local and national calls
- Unlimited txt
- Unlimited 3g internet
.... (list goes on and on)
And all that for only 25$/ month!" (really? Canada is considered the 3rd world for cellphones and internet.... and a contract like that is sketchy, but meh, let's see what else does he wants)


"And we'll also send you the new LG 3G smartphone for absolutely free!"

....

"but for that, we'll need few informations about you.... first, what is your name.... second your Date of Birth.... and Third, whats is your Driver's license number" (WTF? you want to send me something and you dont ask about my address?)


While he was trying to lure me into his scam, I had my laptop next to me, and was googling for all this, and found few websites reporting the same scam attempt...
So, I figured, let's mess with him, and waste his time...


So, when I was saying that I didnt feel too comfortable with tellingthat kind of info on the phone, he kept insisting that he was really from Bell, and that he was located in Alberta , that I could get a number to call back, and his employee number, (Yeah, no shit sherlock, anyone can give me a fake untraceable number, and Alberta is a province not a City...)
But he kept on insisting...

So, knowing he was a scammer, I decided to test him, to see if he was really canadian... by asking some security national questions that only a real canadian could know the answers to

First one was " Whats the name of our prime minister"
Second one: "Whats the capital of Canada"

And every time I asked those questions, he demanded me to repeat, because the line was supposedly cutting, but I could hear his keyboard in the background, (he was googling the answers), and after 1 long minute, he told me the answer with the same tone as a child that is proud to have finally found the answer to something....lol

And third question was "What are the two official languages in Canada?"

Same shit, and he finally tells me "French and English right?".... "ok then, if those are our official languages, and you're calling from Bell Canada, I would like a service in FRENCH.....

Indian scammer start to panic, and start reading me really fast, a message saying something like this: (yes you can tell when someone is reading of talking to you)

"we are sorry, but all our French and SPANISH reps are on vacation, will be back next monday"

SPANISH? really? I didnt ask about a service in Spanish....

Then I just told the dude that he was a scammer, and hung up.... never heard back from him... :P