I just got a scam phone call that everyone should be aware of. How do I know it was a scam phone call? Well, first of all I got a call from a local area code. When I picked up, I heard a message saying that Bell Canada had just completed their upgrades to fibre and I was being offered an upgraded and faster “router” at no charge. This was a red flag for me as I know that Bell has suspended their fibre rollout because they’re upset with the CRTC. Besides that, I already have Bell fibre optic Internet. So unless I have missed something, there should be no reason why they would be contacting me to swap out my “router”. More likely they would wait for my HH4000 to die. Then I would call in to get a replacement which would likely be the Gigahub. The other thing that got my attention about this message was the call quality was horrendously bad. The message was full of static and at times I could barely understand it. No telco would ever have a message that is that bad.
The message asked me to press one to get my delivery date. Now given everything that I have explained above, what I should have done is hang up. But as proven multiple times on this blog, I want to dig in further. So I pressed one and quickly got a male with an Indian accent. That’s another red flag as the last time I checked, Bell outsources to the Philippines. Again the quality of the call was so bad that I could barely make out what he was saying, and eventually the call disconnected.
Now while I was 99% sure that I was being scammed, I wanted to confirm it with Bell. Which is why I served up this Tweet to them:
While I was waiting for them to respond to this, I decided to look up the number that the phone call came from. I traced it back to the fax line of an electrical company in Markham Ontario. Thus confirming that the call didn’t come from Bell as calls from Bell typically pop up at as your local area code followed by the digits 310-2355. Though if a Bell tech is calling you, that will not be the case as they use their cell phones. And if you’ve called a tech, you’ll be expecting their call. So, why are they spoofing a local number? It’s to encourage you to answer the call because so many of us won’t answer calls from long distance numbers that we don’t know.
Bell got back to me on Twitter to confirm what I already knew:
Though they didn’t come out and say it, it was a scam call. Clearly there’s a threat actor out there who is using Bell to perpetrate a new scam. I wasn’t able to play along to figure out what their game is. But if they do call back, I’ll go into the weeds and let you know about it. But in the meantime, if you get one of these calls, do yourself a favour and hang up.
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This entry was posted on March 13, 2024 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Bell, Scam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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BEWARE: Bell Is Being Used In A Phone #Scam Related To Fibe Internet
I just got a scam phone call that everyone should be aware of. How do I know it was a scam phone call? Well, first of all I got a call from a local area code. When I picked up, I heard a message saying that Bell Canada had just completed their upgrades to fibre and I was being offered an upgraded and faster “router” at no charge. This was a red flag for me as I know that Bell has suspended their fibre rollout because they’re upset with the CRTC. Besides that, I already have Bell fibre optic Internet. So unless I have missed something, there should be no reason why they would be contacting me to swap out my “router”. More likely they would wait for my HH4000 to die. Then I would call in to get a replacement which would likely be the Gigahub. The other thing that got my attention about this message was the call quality was horrendously bad. The message was full of static and at times I could barely understand it. No telco would ever have a message that is that bad.
The message asked me to press one to get my delivery date. Now given everything that I have explained above, what I should have done is hang up. But as proven multiple times on this blog, I want to dig in further. So I pressed one and quickly got a male with an Indian accent. That’s another red flag as the last time I checked, Bell outsources to the Philippines. Again the quality of the call was so bad that I could barely make out what he was saying, and eventually the call disconnected.
Now while I was 99% sure that I was being scammed, I wanted to confirm it with Bell. Which is why I served up this Tweet to them:
While I was waiting for them to respond to this, I decided to look up the number that the phone call came from. I traced it back to the fax line of an electrical company in Markham Ontario. Thus confirming that the call didn’t come from Bell as calls from Bell typically pop up at as your local area code followed by the digits 310-2355. Though if a Bell tech is calling you, that will not be the case as they use their cell phones. And if you’ve called a tech, you’ll be expecting their call. So, why are they spoofing a local number? It’s to encourage you to answer the call because so many of us won’t answer calls from long distance numbers that we don’t know.
Bell got back to me on Twitter to confirm what I already knew:
Though they didn’t come out and say it, it was a scam call. Clearly there’s a threat actor out there who is using Bell to perpetrate a new scam. I wasn’t able to play along to figure out what their game is. But if they do call back, I’ll go into the weeds and let you know about it. But in the meantime, if you get one of these calls, do yourself a favour and hang up.
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This entry was posted on March 13, 2024 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Bell, Scam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.