TELUS Customers Have Joined Rogers Customers In Being The Targets Of A Phone #Scam
Recently, I wrote about being the target of a phone scam using the Rogers name. Well, I had a reader of this blog reach out to me last night to say that he had been targeted in similar scam using the TELUS name.
The person told me that the threat actor offered him a $40 a month plan with a “free” iPhone 14 Pro Max. Now if that sounds familiar, it’s a very similar pitch that I got from the threat actor who claimed to be Rogers. Now he asked for the details via email to make sure he got it in writing. And he did get them. But he got them from an email address ending in “mail.com.” This tipped him off that this was a scam and he hung up. But not before providing his drivers licence number and home address. Which is bad as that is a great jumping off point for a threat actor to launch an identity theft scam. On my advice, he’s enabling credit monitoring via Trans Union and Equifax to make sure that he catches anything that these threat actors do. And it’s a safe bet that he’s likely to be the target of more scams in the future as he’s now on the radar screens of the threat actor.
Now, to make sure that you stay safe, here’s some advice in terms of protecting yourself:
- Remember that Canadian cell phone plans are among the most expensive in the world. And carriers don’t give away phones. Especially iPhone 14 Pro Max models. Thus if it sound too good to be true. It is likely too good to be true.
- If you want to verify if a deal is true or a scam, hang up and call TELUS using a number from their website. Do not rely on the number that you see on your phone’s call display as that could be a number that has been spoofed.
- Under no circumstances should you give out any personal information to anyone who calls you in this manner.
What’s clear here is that the threat actors have either moved on from using the Rogers name to run their scam, or the threat actors are running the two scams in parallel. Which means that they could move to using Bell, or Freedom, or any other carrier at any time once the word gets out that the scam exists and is tied to a specific carrier. That means you need to keep your head on a swivel at all times to make sure that you don’t get taken advantage of these scams.
Finally, if you’ve come across one of these scams, please reach out to me so that I can publish the details and expose these scams so it limits how effective they are. Also reach out to the phone carrier in question so that they can take actions on their end. Because whomever this threat actor is, they’re clearly busy trying to scam Canadians out of their hard earned money.
August 21, 2023 at 8:57 am
I contacted Rogers after receiving a similar scam call. They did not care. We’re not interested in any of the information when I asked to speak to the fraud department. They did not have one according to the person online. Thank you for keeping us informed.
September 7, 2023 at 6:47 pm
I got the same call from “Telus Mobility” this morning. An Indian guy calling from a random number in Ontario. I immediately suspected it was a scam, so I asked them to call back in the afternoon (while I googled it). The original offer was for an iPhone 14 for $40/mon, but they gave me the choice of 3 different Samsung models as well. In the afternoon callback, I was transfered to a supervisor. He wanted to confirm my name, but it was spelled wrong (so I didn’t correct it). I asked if I could call Telus directly to discuss the offer. He avoided the question, but instead told me to call 1-865-276-7573 and ask for Steve. The call quality was pretty lousy, as others have noted (not a great selling point for people trying to sell you cell phone services).