Bell Is Now The Target Of A Phone Scam
In the last month I have reported on a Rogers phone scam, and a TELUS phone scam that target customers of both telcos to scam the unwitting out of phones. After coming across the TELUS one, I said this:
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.
Well, it seems the threat actors have moved onto Bell. A reader emailed into me about a scam that they encountered that involves Bell that goes something like this:
- A person claiming to be from “Bell” will call you and offer you a discount in terms of your wireless service. And along with that, you will get a brand new Samsung Galaxy S23 delivered to your door.
- IF you say yes, they will extract all sorts of personal information to complete the order. You will then get the phone a couple of days later.
- After you receive the phone, you will then get another call from “Bell” saying the phone that you just received was accidentally sent to you. You will then be directed to go to the nearest UPS to send the phone to the “correct recipient”. And you will get a label from an email address ending in “@thebell.ca ” which isn’t Bell Canada.
What the scam is all about is that the threat actors are extracting enough information from you to order a new phone from Bell and ship it to you. That way you and Bell are out a new phone. Thus I will give you this advice:
- Remember that Canadian cell phone plans are among the most expensive in the world. And carriers don’t give away phones. Especially Samsung Galaxy S23 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 Bell 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.
If you have fallen for this scam and the phone shows up at your home, call Bell, explain the situation and follow their instructions to cancel the account that the threat actors created and to return the phone to Bell. This is what I told the person who reported this to me.
Clearly these threat actors are very active. That means that you need to have your thinking caps on to make sure that you aren’t scammed. And if you come across any more variants of this scam, please let me know so that I can get the word out.
December 11, 2023 at 2:58 pm
Today i received a phone call and was told that someone had changed something that had to do with the security of my Bell phone account. If I was not the person who had done this I was told I should click on number 1. I don’t get my phone service from Bell so it didn’t apply to me.
If this was some kind of hoax I don’t know what they hoped to gain.
And, please do not mail me any posts of any kind.. I am not sure I have punched the right buttons below to achieve this.
January 22, 2024 at 10:48 pm
I fell for this scam earlier today. They said they would send me an iPhone 15, reduce my bill to $50 a month and throw in a free apple watch as a part of a promotion. They asked for my email, they sent me a verification code to email which I read to them. I realized it was a scam when the confirmation email was formatted strangely and then found your website. Thank you for this post. I wanted to believe it was real because it was such a great deal, I overlooked the red flags.They had changed the password on my bell account and ordered a device upgrade on my account.
January 23, 2024 at 7:44 am
I’m sorry to hear that. Were you able to regain control of your account and stop the order?
January 25, 2024 at 5:56 pm
Just got a very similar call to Sarah above. The caller had a noticeable Indian accent and offered a Bell promotion of 50g data, unlimited international calling and texting, and Iphone 15 pro for $55/month on a 2 year contract. The initial conversation only lasted 1 min and the person offered to connect me to his manager to offer a better deal and within seconds I was transferred over to someone named “Steve” also with a slight accent. Steve proceeded to offer me an “amazing” deal to which I promptly hung up as this “amazing” deal was so unprompted that it was a noticeable red flag. After hanging up, they proceeded to spam call me 3 times under the phone number 1-866-558-2275. Be careful out their folks, I’ve encountered many tax scams but this one is new to me.
February 6, 2024 at 7:08 pm
I got a call from them as well for iPhone 14 Pro Max, i fell for this and gave my DL number which was expired. When I discovered this was a scam, I called Equifax and TransUnion credit bureaus and put in a fraud alert. What should I have to do further?
February 6, 2024 at 8:11 pm
Sorry to hear about this. I’ve written a few articles on what to do. Here’s one of them and you’ve already done one of the things on my list:
https://itnerd.blog/2017/07/14/investigating-a-tech-support-scam-part-4-how-to-avoid-getting-scammed/
I hope that helps
March 8, 2024 at 7:29 pm
I had a similar experience, but in my case, the fake Bell rep already knew my personal information (email/ home address). So, I didn’t realize there was any scam involved until more than one phone showed up at my door. Somehow they hacked into mybell account and ordered the phones, then said it was sent in error, and that I should place their return labels on them. Return labels were sent by email which looked very legit, but turned out they were not. Bell didn’t receive the phones back.
March 22, 2024 at 2:57 pm
I was recently charged $27 for answering the phone from Bell Canada landline from scam numbers I was told by Bell canada not to answer my phone but unfortunately I run a business out of my house and these are Bell Canada providers for the scam numbers Toronto 6478473000 $1.33 every time they phoned and I answered , Kingston scam number 87679793244 they charge $4.60 every time you answer your phone and they phone up to four times a day Toronto Sam number 647-876-7146 $1.33 every time they phone and then we have the big scam that everybody is getting right now is the teddy bear scale. They’re asking you to buy a teddy bear from retired police officers out of Barrie Ontario and their phone number is 705-733-2535 and they charge from $1.33 to $2.66 every time they phone and they phone 5 to 6 times a day please check your seniors bill as this is a landline and they are targeting people that are disabled or seniors. I was told by Bell canada today that there is a do not call list and now I have to do their job for them considering these are all Bell Canada phone numbers. I’m not sure what type of scam this is when Bell candidate gives the scammer a phone number the scammer phones ask we pick up the phone and Bell can charges us it is unfortunate that I am disabled with a service dog and they’re treating disabled people this way, but I can’t imagine what they’re doing to seniors
October 9, 2024 at 8:50 am
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