UK 02:46 Sunday, 25 October 2026
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Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from ShareProphets). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Here is a telephone number to be very concerned about: 0203 290 3834. If you get a call from this number, just tell them to Foxtrot Oscar - and report it. But who to? Here is what happened with a customer of Talk Talk yesterday. We will call her Jane Doe.
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Comments
wildrides
I am a Talk Talk customer and can assure you that adequate warnings have been issued ………..many times . In addition they have given all customers ones years free credit monitoring with alerts . Your Jane must be a bit , shall we say politely , thick . This scam has been widespread for many years ( at least 7 years ago was my first call encounter) and prior to talk talk the hook was “this is microsoft calling” . BBC watchdog has covered it extensively . The scammers often ask you to call back “talk talk” to prove its not a scam .when you do they keep the line open at their end and when you dial they pretend to be talk talk answering or microsoft , etc etc . If anyone asks for ANYTHING unsolicited / initiated by you in the first instance, whether by phone or email , it is a scam . I am in neighborhood (beaky) watch and its almost daily I get news from the police of a minor variation on this scam . Remember ……. if you did not call or e.mail them first ………. its a scam . They MUST be replying to your initial direct enquiry for it to be a genuine contact .
Keep safe .
J P Spaghetti
Scum (not you Nigel). The blood pressure of anyone with a relative of senior years trying to maintain an independent existence despite the best attempts of a vile neurodegenerative disease will no doubt have risen significantly reading this. Wildes is right – it’s not a new scam, but no less despicable. I’d hang them. Seriously.
alcira16247
Nigel
Your story, once again, illustrates the clearly carefree cavalier attitude Talk Talk appears to have towards its customers generally and that of their security.
The company hasn’t covered itself in any glory, whatsoever, dealing with the recent cyber security issues and arising negative publicity. Fortunate that its corporate reputation and hence share price has not suffered greater damage. Therefore surprising, that on the basis once bitten, thrice shy, that any customer having security issues wasn’t dealt with a more serious, efficient, reassuring response.
Your not too big to fail Talk Talk……. your reputation of dealing with customer care issues isn’t good…… so how many are going to walk when their contracts cease?
Talk Talk – one to short for 2016
Pousis
My Great Uncle Mdele Mdele (who I never even knew I had) died recently, you’ll be amazed to know that he was a crown prince of Nigeria and that he left me an absolute fookin fortune. One small admin fee to get through the paperwork and I’m a rich man – s’long suckas.
The internet had been around for over 20 years and most of these scams have been around for nearly as long, its just the name changes – the one in Nigels piece used to be about Microsoft many years ago.
You can’t believe the gullibility of some people, he said as he slaps his head into his palm whilst looking at his share portfolio..;)
Simple Moving Avarice
Talk Talk are the guys who hang around in WHSmith trying to sell you broadband when you just want a newspaper.
OFCOM called their sales tactics “dishonest, misleading or deceptive”.
So I’m going to assume that the reason they weren’t interested in someone shopping a bunch of scammers would be professional courtesy.
GrindertraderUK
I don’t think Jane is thick at all, as this happened to a friends of mine just last week.
I got a phone call from my friend Hugh saying his computer is beeping and a big black sign and white text saying ‘TALK TALK.. your computer has been compromised.. please ring this number (….)
Hugh phoned the number to be told that it was a serious problem and his computer would be at great risk if it wasn’t fixed. The scammer at the other end said it would cost him money, but they would fix it and to hand over the credit card details.
Hugh wasn’t thick.. but he still didn’t realise it was a scammer. he still thought it was a Talk talk agent. being a tight fisted Glaswegian he simply refused to pay saying its Talk talk fault, and talk talk should fix it for free…
So the scammer got agitated and simply went in a rude manner ‘Do you want your computer fixed or not’ where my Hugh simply went ‘I want if fixed but I am NOT paying’ in which the scammer went ‘fine’ and put the phone down.
I looked at the computer and saw the ‘warning sign’. There was some virus software that rerouted Hugh’s Internet Explorer browser software from his home page to a address that contained the dodgy warning.
So we deleted all cookies, browsing history and updated the virus scan software and it got rid of the problem.
Hugh is a Talk talk customer, but when he phoned the proper number to highlight what happened, he was answered by an Indian Call Centre who simply told him there was no problem and not to worry. they didn’t ask him for the scammers phone number, the scammers browser address or anything like that.
The Talk Talk staff were not interested in hearing how he nearly got scammed. No Hugh is not thick. Anyone without good computer knowledge could fall for this scam, when a big black frightening warning pops up on your computer screen with horrible beeps.
Hugh didn’t get scammed cause he is a tight fisted Scottish dude. not because he recognised it as a scam. Calling someone thick passes the fault for being scammed from the scammer to the victim. I am afraid that’s wrong way to look at this
Scampi
That Microsoft scam is still going.
I got phoned a few weeks ago by a man speaking with an Indian accent purporting to be from Microsoft and calling to tell me my computer had a virus.
I knew it hadn’t as I have decent antivirus and run scans regularly so I duly hung up on him then I googled and found it was quite a common and well known scam.
https://www.google.fr/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=microsoft+scam+call+2015&tbm=vid
It’s a shark infested world out there and we all need to keep our wits about us at all times.
Phil
Well I was a talk talk customers until they issued me with someones else invoice. 3 years later and about a dozen debt collections agencies including visits from 3 set of bailiffs, I wrote the whole thing up, posted in recorded delivery to Talk Talk with added comments that if I ever spent a lifetime trying to find a human being who was so fucking useless, lacked sympathy, empathy, a man born without a brain and a complete professional no-hoper I would never find another example as darling of the city, adored by his shareholders one Charles fucking Dunstan.
After all this was done, and a new world began I was having my hair cut relating my story of my encounter with this pos to a woman who cutting my hair. She broke down in tears, they had done the same to her. She paid it and the debt collectors fees, just to get this piece of shit off her back.
It truly is the worst customer service I have ever come across. In year 2 of this 3 year story and after trying for 4 months to get Talk Talk to answer the phone, I went to a Talk Talk shop in Morley, West Yorks. I asked the lad behind the counter (name of Wayne) to phone their accounts so I could have a word with them. He said no, we can’t do that so I said why not, because they don’t answer to us either. Says it all.
I went to BT, explained the whole problem as they patiently listened, they had a new account opened, connected including a new broadband connection up online in 3 hours. You take companies as you find em.
If Talk Talk were the only share on the whole worlds markets it would fall. bargepole
DUCK AND DIVE
Not sure of the relevance of this all-too-common story — unless you meant to add a final para along the usual “bargepole” lines.
Mr Scam Baiter
https://www.lovemoney.com/news/28892/we-must-act-on-these-0203-phone-number-scammers
Example of my best one..
In respect of the Scam it runs something like this.. Someone calls you up and will generally claim that they are from Microsoft. They may use another hook. Next they will tell you that either your computer has reported to them that it is infected or otherwise suggest it is infected or running very slowly. Either way they will suggest that they are there to help you sort out the problem.
Sometimes they may suggest you are with a particular provider, ‘guess’, or in this case either ‘guess’ that you are with TalkTalk which given recent events might get them further.
Of course if they do have your, partial, details as a result of the ‘hack’, TalkTalk leaving their servers wide open to teenage script kiddies such that they could not only get in but then access an unprotected and unencrypted database, then they will sound more convincing.
And NO I do not accept the comment from WildRides. I, and he, might be ‘clued up’ but other people, the vast majority, are [L]Users and I do not mean to use the term in a derogatory manner. That’s just the way that they are and that’s why these scams exist, with assistance from TalkTalk.
You will initially be asked to press the Windows and R key on the keyboard together. This should bring up a ‘run box’ and they will ask you to type ‘msconfig’ into it,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSConfig
At this point I’ll slightly lose the plot because I run Linux. It is my supposition that they are trying to get you to enable Windows Remote Assistance,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Remote_Assistance
“Windows Remote Assistance is a feature of Windows XP and later that allows a user to temporarily view or control a remote Windows computer over a network or the Internet to resolve issues without directly touching the unit. It is based on the Remote Desktop Protocol.”
It is their first ‘port of call’ because this is supplied on most/all Windows systems and as you might guess from the description what they are trying to do is gain remote access to your computer which, if they did, would be ‘game over’ time. They don’t get so far with me because Linux will not play.
We spend about 10 to 20 minutes getting into an argument about how to press the Windows and R key together. They are already convinced that I am running Windows because I’ve told them I do not have a clue but that there is a sticker on the front of the computer that says ‘Windows Vista’ or whatever.
So ultimately they give up via that route and I am asked to open up my browser and either go to TeamViewer or Ammyy in order to download an exe file…. A computer program that is going to give them the same sort of access they would have got if Windows|R would have worked.
https://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx
http://www.ammyy.com/en/
More fun ensues as they explain how to get the file and then how to ‘run’ it. By this time I am usually on to my second ‘little helper’ because they think they have a thick ‘mark’ and we have been chatting for about 45 minutes.
Of course Linux has problems running Windows exe files because it is not Windows and throws up all sorts of error messages. Actually it is quite specific and slightly helpful so I, selectively, read out what the computer is trying to tell me it is having problems with. With a bit of prompting they decide that I do not have ‘administrator privileges’ and I move onto my third ‘little helper’ and past the first hour on the phone.
Of course I do not know much about this sort of stuff. Someone else set the computer up for me and the family and the instructions are on a bit of paper somewhere and the battery on the phone is running out, its wireless, so I ask if they can call me back whilst I recharge it and dig out the bit of paper. Twenty minutes later they do. After all they are about to get ‘administrator access’ to the ‘family’ computer. What’s not to like?
Having got the phone recharged we are ‘good to go’. It also helps that I whilst I am still in Linux I have booted up a copy of the version of Vista the computer was originally supplied with in a ‘virtual machine’…
https://www.virtualbox.org/
So we go through the ‘administrator login’ process and sort out how to spell Michael and where the @ key is on the keyboard. I have to add @ to the end of Michael for the password and Michael is not spelt Micheal. This involves a bit more mumbling over the phone but having given them the admin name and password, doh, we can progress. I am asked to run the program I previously downloaded from AMMYY. I’m not sure why we don’t just use msconfig but… I’m thick.
Whilst I did download it under Linux it is not available in Windows under the ‘virtual machine’ or at least, whilst I know exactly where it is under Linux and how to access it from Windows, I’m not going to bother so we spend the next fifteen minutes not finding it using ‘file manager’ before downloading another copy and adding another ten minutes to get it running….
Total so far, excluding a 20 minute coffee break, 1 hour 25 minutes. I might be on my fourth ‘little helper’ and the level of ‘tetchiness’ so far from the other side has been ‘moderate’.
Now I have got the ‘remote access software’ installed and running there is one last ‘key to the kingdom’. So I read out the ‘number’, missing out a digit, and my ‘little helper’ cannot connect. Apparently he is missing a digit, if only, so I apologise saying my eyesight is not as good as it used to be, old thick pensioner duffer, and give the real and proper one. Bingo, he is in and moving the mouse across the Desktop.
I’m sort of ‘Wow’ over the phone and ‘Are you using my computer?’. He says yes and that he is searching for infected files in order to show me the problems and….
I pause the ‘virtual machine’. We are now at 1hr 50 minutes of ‘remote support’ and I am, at last, getting slightly bored. So when he says something has gone wrong I apologise for pausing the ‘virtual machine’ and suggest it does that automatically when I am doing something else under Linux but, if he wants, I can go back and look at the Vista one and then it might start working again.
Now I am accused of ‘lying’. He sounds a bit indignant but he’s got me there. I suggest he is not very good at his job and hang up. He calls me back and starts talking about his qualifications and, adding in the extra goading and swearing time from both sides, at just over 2 hours of having my computer ‘fixed’ he hangs up.
The above is not verbatim but it is close enough and it happens, happened, because I know a bit and if I am in the right mood, given previous experience, I can string the shits along. Jane Doe, and my Mum, might not be so lucky. OK, my Mum does not have a computer so it’s a bit easier for her and otherwise we’ve had a chat about such things.
Just because Dido Harding, who is not my Mum… God Forbid and WildRides blah about ‘people’ being ‘warned’ about such things is irrelevant especially when TalkTalk drops their pants on behalf of their customers. Of course,
“I am a Talk Talk customer and can assure you that adequate warnings have been issued ………..many times .”
Perhaps WildRides will tell us the format of those ‘adequate warnings’ and also define ‘adequate’.
Russ O'Callaghan
I’m surprised that the countries from which many of these scams operate are not more interested in getting onboard with the rest of the world in trying to root these schite out. In the case of Nigeria, where a disproportionate number of these banking scams originate there is already a highly developed legal system through which to pursue these blokes, but which doesn’t have an impressive track-record of doing so up until now.
What I really don’t get is why the governments are missing such a great opportunity to impress the rest of the world by upping their efforts to get rid of this, even if that merely means driving it across their borders and into some neighbouring country. It’s not even Africa’s sole problem. Some of the recent EU countries, the “Far East”, host all manner of offensive sites that, seemingly, their governments are either oblivious to or even friendly towards.
J P Spaghetti
SCAMPI and others – as they were footing the bill for the phone call I’d have strung him along for as long as I could, claiming there was an issue with Teamviewer and to be trying to download it (I’ve used it just a few times and seem to recall downloading it), etc. In fact, I suggest that everyone responds that way to verminous calls like this (as tempting as it is to just tell them where to go straight away in robust Anglo-Saxon!).
wildrides
Scammy
The warnings were by e-mail , by post and on the site at login and on the e-mail login . The offer of free monitoring of credit history with alerts was by post .
All I can say is that if you lot think I am being harsh then you must have been living under a rock for about ten years . If your relative is senile or has dementure then Power of Attorney is what you need . Your solicitor can arrange it . You take control of financial matters so they cant spend owt at all online without your presence with the credit / debit card issued for the purpose .
The best scam of all locks your computer screen completely and puts a message up that says you have been looking at illegal porn sites and if you want it unlocked then to phone this number and pay a fine . It has interpol police logos on the page and looks like the police have caught up with your seedy habits. You have to pay a fine and then you find it just stays locked anyway ! Our local police station get loads of blokes coming in with locked lappys . There is a tool online to cure it but you need another laptop to link to the tool besides the locked one . By the way the virus is a trojan horse caught on porn sites so people really do think they have been caught ! ( you have been warned ) and it is not really from Interpol ! The scammers make millions from it apparently every year , because most blokes keep quiet and only tell perhaps their best mate as they are so ashamed at being caught ( they think) Its also thought to increase laptop sales a lot when the virus is on popular porn sites as many blokes just buy a new laptop not realising its an easy fix , because they dont want the embarrassment of having to tell anyone!
J P Spaghetti
Sorry if this is posted twice – I commented there before SCAM BAITER’S post was showing
Russ O'Callaghan
Wildrides, what exactly is “dementure”? I’m getting on a bit now and I easily forget what a lot of these techy expressions mean…
:-)
Phil
Duck & Dive
A company is more than it’s directors and it’s shareholders, a company is a room. Included in the room are customers, employees, suppliers, the economy and the environments that it works in. Contrary to director and shareholder views the most important part of a company are it’s customers, they are the ones can leave with no loss. If you can destroy a thing, you control a thing. When customer leave the room the deal is a bust, everyone else gets wiped out, the customer simply move on.
Here is a list of companies that suffered shareholder loss as a consequence of damaging one or more parts of their room.
The banking industry. lying, scamming, mis-selling, grafting, shifting, liboring. They treated the economy badly, the economy busted them out.
Tesco. With a very manipulative model, high prices and falling qualities Tesco stopped caring about customers. Customers stopped caring about Tesco, they walked and not all will come back.
Energy industry. with a total dis-regard to their consumers, the consumers played fightback by using the politicians.
BP, the most prolific and perpetual polluter of Africa, creating the African Chernobyl where nothing can live. BP took this total dis-regard of their environments to America, the Americans responded and came close to wiping it out.
In all these cases this dis-regard worked it’s way into shareholder values. Which you can clearly by checking Bank SP over the last 10 years, Tesco over two years, and lastly TalkTalk over the last 3 months.
Companies that don’t treat customers properly are bargepoles, there are no exceptions.
Investing in a company that doesn’t get it right all the time, is a different proposition to a company that never ever gets it right. This recent data leak isn’t the first from Talktalk, there have been others.
wildrides
Russ ………..its like spongy form encatha watsit ( mad cow disease) or alt sigh mers but harder to speel ;-)
Russ O'Callaghan
:-)
SteveSi
TalkTalk do have a free blocking service. Simply dial 14258 (simple to remember as it is the first two keys in a column and then the next three keys on the number pad), and it will add the last call that was made to your phone to the ‘barred calls’ list. Also, these ‘TalkTalk’ scammers often give you their number so you can call them to confirm they are ‘real’ – again TalkTalk will not block these numbers and will allow you to dial them. I have asked them why they don’t do this but they did not give any explanation. What amazes me though, is that TalkTalk are aware of the numbers that these scammers use but do not automatically add the numbers to everyones ‘barred calls’ list. So do they really care about their customers?
To stop the scammers, try this technique http://rmprepusb.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/how-to-stop-scam-phone-calls.html
David Russell
We have had this for over a year before loss of the data and they even now are account number. TalkTalk as not given us much help. We only have broadband from them and every call we have from these people pretending to be tallktalk is about error messages. They want you to put a code in the browser. We lost internet access for over a month because the exchange was mixed up and a BT engineer was called in. We still got the phone calls from the bogus Talktalk scammers so TalkTalk set up a password to contact us on a new mobile number not on account with them. The last 12 months contract with them as been a joke but they did credit us 3 months because we was not getting full internet access and October we had no internet at all. The problem is who to go with next.?