A New Bell Telephone #Scam Is Making The Rounds
I’ll say right up front that I am still investigating this, thus details are a bit light. But having said that, I wanted to make sure that this new scam involving Bell Canada is out there so that you are aware and can protect yourself accordingly.
Yesterday, my home number (as opposed to my business number) got a call which went to voice mail as nobody was home at the time. When I played the message back, it was a pre-recorded message that was claiming to be from Bell Canada. And that they were disconnecting my Internet and TV “line” temporally. I was then prompted to press one to get to a representative or press two to get to technical support to “address the unusual activity on your line.” So what the scammers are hoping that you will do is freak out because your Internet is being disconnected or that you have “unusual” activity on your connection and engage with them. Then they can execute whatever their evil plan is, which at this point isn’t clear.
Now while Bell Canada is our telco provider at the moment, I knew right away that this was clearly a scam. For starters, the audio quality was horrible. No telco would ever have an outbound message with audio that was that bad. That made me think that it might be the same threat actors that were behind this Bell Canada scam from a few weeks ago who clearly haven’t improved the approach to this scam. The second thing was the number that they calling from. It was from an 847 area code which is in Illinois and not Canada. So clearly the number is spoofed, and the threat actors aren’t smart enough to use a Canadian area code. Though there were two other things that tipped me off that this was a scam. But I am not going to disclose those at this time as I don’t want to give the threat actors ideas in terms of improving the effectiveness of the scam.
Now related to this, I did find on DSL Reports that there’s a slightly different version of this scam making the rounds as well, which I suspect is from the same threat actors. You can read about that here. Clearly there’s an active scam campaign out there that while it won’t get non-Bell Canada customers, some Bell Canada customers will fall for whatever version of this scam that hits their phone. I’ll be reaching out to Bell Canada later today to see if I can get some comment and some advice so that you can better protect yourself from this scam. But if you get a call from someone claiming to be Bell Canada, I feel safe in saying that you should immediately hang up and call 310-2355 and verify that the call that you received was real. Chances are, it wasn’t.
May 11, 2024 at 8:34 am
[…] Bell Canada’s name in an attempt to scam people. If you want to read about those scams, click here and here for […]
July 31, 2024 at 7:27 pm
i received a call from Bell offering Seniors Discount with a free Apply Watch or computer. Am I at risk or how do I report this to Bell
July 31, 2024 at 7:30 pm
That depends. IF you gave them any personal information, or IF you gave them access to your computer, then you have an issue. Potentially a serious one.
You should follow the advice here: https://itnerd.blog/2023/03/03/my-advice-on-helping-to-stop-seniors-from-being-scammed/
Skip informing Bell. There’s nothing that they can do for you.
August 5, 2024 at 1:09 pm
I just got the exact same message, word for word with the same 2 options minutes ago, 888 area code, a toll free number covering the US, Canada & Caribbean that customers are supposed to use to call them without paying long distance charges, they don’t use it to call customers and there’s extremely loud muzak playing in the background. I had to check if there was a new scam going around and I was right.
August 15, 2024 at 11:20 am
I remember the first time I got a scam call from Bell this, when I don’t use them, and the “rep” was trying to get personal info from me. I just said “This does not seem legit” -my cordless phone that screens numbers (province/state and city) and if not saved, will tell you this, and said I don’t get why Bell Canada is calling from Missouri, I believed this was a scam and to go do something productive!” And hung up. This scammer had the audacity, the gull and the gumption, to call me back which I electronically recorded with my mobile phone and my landline was on speakerphone , trying to chastise for discrediting his work. I’ll admit it, I can be petty, especially when someone is threatening my safety and/or privacy/well being. Bell does not outsource to the USA for their business. I said if his ego is butt hurt, ask his bosses to pay him more or transfer him to another department and if he wanted I’d talk to his supervisor for him, especially for someone “so sensitive to being hung up on after being accused of scamming, and his “proactively” calling me back using my name (which I NEVER provided or confirmed when asked), and letting his boss know how hard working he was and they should know how hard he works. And then pulled a ”nice Karen”voice and kept asking to talk to the higher up and tell them he deserved more, and he started panicking and hung up. Then five minutes later, the same number appeared and the same guy answered, saying he had his manager on the line, and I said, between the three unsolicited phone calls, lying about why he called to try to scam me about who knows well, and that it was all recorded, and they better pray that I don’t call the cops and the FCC in the USA. And the call dropped, and I blocked that specific number from calling my land line and mobile phone. And haven’t heard a word YET!