Have you ever heard of this?

[maevvy]

Hello..

We're registered on TPS at home, so really wanted to know whether this was legitimate or not.

We got a phone call around 545pm last night from a company who I couldn't hear the name of "calling on behalf of Virgin Media"

The woman on the other end of the phone prattled on about how I have VM Broadband and then proceeded to try and offer me VoIP services.

I had to ask her three times to identify with company she worked for, kept getting dodgy answers until I said specifically: "I would like to know the company you are employed under." And still couldn't catch the name of the company properly (She sounded like an Asian lady) to which I promptly said "Not interested."

Would like to know if this is legitimate (if not so I can report it) and if anyone else has had this problem in the past as I would like to educate my Mother who is the holder of the account in case its a "phishing" scam.

Thanks.

[Stuart]

It sounds like a scam. AFAIK, Virgin do not offer voip services. You can bet that if they do, they'll advertise it.

It's also doubtful they'd employ other companies to offer the service. They would offer the service themselves.

[broadbandking]

I remember this been a issue as customer are signing up and contacting Virgin when it has nothing to do with them I can't remember the name of the company but stay clear.

[maevvy]

Thank you guys :).

If you do remember the name then please let me know.. Would see if I can get any joy out of a report to TPS :).

[Noggo]

I had one similar last week trying to sell me VOIP + internet package as well. Although it did worry me is that she knew that my ISP was Virgin Media. She kept mentioning similar to Vonage, but never mentioned the true name of the company. Not that bothered because I would never commit myself to buy anything by companies ringing me or cold callers at door, I'll always do my homework first.

[*sloman*]

HOW TO DEAL WITH TELEMARKETERS

If they want to loan you money, tell them you just filed for bankruptcy and you could sure use some money.

If they start out with, "How are you today?" say, "Why do you want to know?" Alternately, you can tell them, "I'm so glad you asked, because no one these days seems to care, and I have all these problems; my arthritis is acting up, my eyelashes are sore, my car won't start..." When they try to get to the sell, just keep talking about your problems.

If they say they're John Doe from XYZ Company, ask them to spell their name. Then ask them to spell the company name. Then ask them where it is located. Continue asking them personal questions or questions about their company for as long as necessary.

This works great if you are male: Telemarketer: "Hi, my name is Judy and I'm with XYZ Company..." You: (Wait for a second) With a real husky voice ask, "What are you wearing?"

Cry out in surprise, "Judy! Is that you? Oh my God! Judy, how have you been?" Hopefully, this will give Judy a few brief moments of terror as she tries to figure out where she could know you from.

Say "No", over and over. Be sure to vary the sound of each one, and keep a rhythmic tempo, even as they are trying to speak. This is most fun if you can do it until they hang up.

If MCI calls trying to get you to sign up for the Family and Friends Plan, reply, in as SINISTER a voice as you can, "I don't have any friends...would YOU be my friend?"
If the company cleans rugs, respond: "Can you get blood out? Can you get out GOAT blood? How about HUMAN blood?

Ask him/her to marry you. When they get all flustered, tell them that you could not just give your credit card number to a complete stranger.

Tell the telemarketer that you work for the same company, they often can't sell to their fellow employees.

Answer the phone. As soon as you realize it is a telemarketer, set the receiver down, shout or scream "Oh my God!!!" and then hang-up.

Tell the telemarketer you are busy at the moment and ask them if they will give you their HOME phone number, you will call them back. When the telemarketer explains that they cannot give out their HOME number, you say "I guess you don't want anyone bothering you at home, right?" The telemarketer will agree and you say, "Now you know how I feel!" Hang up.

Ask them to repeat everything they say, several times.

Tell them it is dinner time, BUT ask if they would please hold. Put them on your speaker phone while you continue to eat at your leisure. Smack your food loudly and continue with your dinner conversation.

Tell the telemarketer you are on "home incarceration" and ask if they could bring you some beer.

Tell the telemarketer, "Okay, I will listen to you. But I should probably tell you, I'm not wearing any clothes."

Insist that the caller is really your buddy Leon, playing a joke. "Come on Leon, cut it out! Seriously, Leon, how's your mum?"

Tell them you are hard of hearing and that they need to speak up... louder... louder... louder...

Tell them to talk VERY SLOWLY, because you want to write DOWN EVERY WORD.

[chickendippers]

Be nice to telemarketers, they're just doing their job like the rest of us. If you're not interested, just say "no thank you" and hang up.

[DaggaDagga]

I was cold-called twice last week by Virgin Media. One was an African sounding bloke, then an American sounding woman on the following day. Then there was a silent call a couple of days later.

I did initially think it was a scammer, but I'm prepared to believe that VM are farming out cold-calling to some tele-marketing company. The reason I believe this is that they knew:

My name
The fact that I get phone and bb, but no TV (they were trying to flog TV)
The fact that I'm on the TPS (but they are excluded as they are a company I deal with).

VM are being a bit thick by doing this - even if they successfully flog an extra service to 10% of people, they'll still annoy the other 90% of their customers. It certainly annoyed me anyway, especially when I got the second call after telling the first one not to call me again.

---------- Post added at 15:07 ---------- Previous post was at 15:05 ----------

Be nice to telemarketers, they're just doing their job like the rest of us. If you're not interested, just say "no thank you" and hang up.

I disagree. It's in everyone's interests to make their job as unpleasant as possible, so they have difficulty recruiting or retaining anyone. This makes their costs higher, reducing the chances of further calls for everyone.

[*sloman*]

Could have been this man!

Download Failed (1)

[DaggaDagga]

Could have been this man!


That's exactly what he sounded like, and what I thought at the time :)

[Welshchris]

my friend had a similar experience with someone ringing pretending to be from sky. The person rang up asked for my friend, said he was a sky customer and that he could do my friend a better deal on his sky package and he needed to check my friends billing and account details, when my friend said he wasnt a sky customer the person hung up.

[*sloman*]

Yep i had this from CarPhoneWarehouse too,

They knew my name, who my contract was with, when it ran out etc... They claimed to be from there Phone insurance department offering me cheaper package.

I called CPW and after a few months of complaints i received a call from there CRO department saying mine and a few other x000's peoples details had been stolen.

This is how they knew everything about me. I submitted a complaint to Watchdog and the Information Commissioner i am a waiting a reply.

Call VM and ask how these people may have got your details as you only gave them to them!

[DaggaDagga]

I would expect that it's possible that one department at VM don't know that another department is doing the cold-calling.

I can't understand why a scammer would want to go to such lengths. I wouldn't give my credit card details to someone I thought was Virgin anyway, as they already take payment by direct debit.

I still believe it was Virgin, unless someone from the company can correct me.

They stated that I had previously opted out of comms from NTL (true) but, as they are now Virgin, that agreement no longer applies. They have stated that I will no longer be contacted by them.

Whoever it was, I made it very clear that I didn't want to be called again.

[AndyCambs]

I had a call on my cellphone asking me if I wanted to upgrade my cellphone on contract - be interesting as I have a SIM only with VirginMobile...

Another one was a call asking for me from Accident Helpline saying my father had been involved in an accident in the past three years. When I said no, they got desperate and said it might not have been a car accident..

[maevvy]

Well, yes they did know my VM BB/phone package and stuff, which was slightly worrying. That's what I could gather from my Mum before she handed the call over to me "because my daughter knows more about it."

My mum thought it was Virgin because like me didn't catch the name of the company before hand and it was so garbled/noisy in the background it almost sounded like she was in a rush to get through the first part and then stress it was on behalf of Virgin.. Otherwise I know my Mum would have hung up.

I will give Virgin a tinkle tonight and see what can be done/what is going on.

[Impz2002]

Could have been this man!




LOL !

George@NationalBankOfUganda.com :)

genius !

[broadbandking]

Vonage thats the name of the company I knew I would remember it

[maevvy]

Reported it to VM and the nice CSR said on the other end of the phone she'll tell/email her manager so that the CS part is aware.

Stay safe all :) :).
Thanks for the help.

[*sloman*]

Vonage thats the name of the company I knew I would remember it

Vonage are wicked! I would have them but if you internet goes down your screwed.

Plus with VM's STM every little Byte pushes me closer to STM

[Stuart]

It's also worth noting that with Broadband based VOIP (ie not provided directly by BT or Virgin), you may have no service in an emergency. Even a mobile phone may be useless if the power goes down in an area.

Fixed line phone services such as BT and Virgin are required to have backup generators or batteries to power the phones in the event of an area-wide power failure. Broadband providers (including BT and Virgin) are not. Even assuming that they can provide service, your Modem will not be working.

I don't know if any mobile network base stations are required to have backup batteries, so a mobile may be useless as well.

[dcclanuk]

My experience which I posted on another site some time ago:

I get a call... its for my mum, but I say she is not in.
Me: Who are you?
Them: I am calling from "Vodafone Hello"? Download Failed (1)
Me: So what do you want?
Them: I am calling to tell you that your tv and samsung phone will be with you by Monday evening.
Me: Did anyone buy it?
Them: No
Me: Have I won it?
Them: No
Me: So this is a sales call?
Them: NO, IT'S A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY Download Failed (1)
Me: So do I have to pay for it?
Them: Yes, ?35/month for 18 months
Me: So is it coming on Monday evening?
Them: No
Me: So this is a sales call?
Them: No, this is a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY Download Failed (1)
Me: This is a sales call since you are asking me for money to SELL me something.
Them: Sir you are getting a free TV and Samsung phone!
Me: This is a sales call, and it is illegal, have you heard of the Telephone Preference Service (TPS)?
Them: You are getting a TV and a phone.
Me: Have you heard of the Telephone Preference Service (TPS)?
Them: You will have it by the end of Monday.
Me: Have you heard of the Telephone Preference Service (TPS)?
Them: TV and phone....
Me: Stop avoiding the damn question, Have you heard of the Telephone Preference Service?
Them: Yes
Me: So this is a sales call and it is illegal since I am registered with the TPS. Let me speak to your manager.
Them: Wait a minute sir........... Sorry, manager is busy, he will call you after 10 mins.
Me: Isn't that a surprise, I want to complain because your call is illegal, and your manager is busy.
Them: He will call you after 10 mins.
Me: I know he will not call me.
Them: Sir he will call you.
Me: So you now agree this is a sales call and therefore illegal?Download Failed (1)
and the put the phone down http://82.143.202.118/images/smiley4/lol.gif

Gosh I have never been infuriated with a sales person so much! FFS if its a sales call its a sales call, not a %&@$&? GOLDEN OPPORTUNITYhttp://82.143.202.118/images/smilies2/angry.gif

;)

[DaggaDagga]

My theory is that VM have out-sourced cold-calling to some dodgy foreign outfit. That would explain the OP's account of them being reluctant to say who they work for - they probably actually work for George Agdgdgwngo Industries under contract to VM, not VM directly.

If this is happening then IMO it's a huge mistake - VM will lose more in goodwill and custom than they'll gain in upgrades.

Still doesn't explain the VOIP thing though - perhaps they also cold-call for Vonage under another contract and got confused. Many of them seem to speak little English, other than reading a script and understanding a few words. That was certainly the case for the first "George" that rang me.

For the non-Fonejacker fans:

http://www.e4.com/fonejacker/soundboard-george.html

Actually this feller is more like it:

http://www.e4.com/fonejacker/soundboard-isp-guy.html

[keyholder]

Could have been this man!

http://www.e4.com/media/5F5C19BB-A6ED-4F31-BE34-BA6A137274E4_extra.jpg

Lmfaoooooo. :D:D:D what a pic

Hey man, would like a bannana mon

[Zhadnost]

Fixed line phone services such as BT and Virgin are required to have backup generators or batteries to power the phones in the event of an area-wide power failure.


I thought this was only true of BT.

[Stuart]

I thought this was only true of BT.

I believe Virgin also have battery backups.

[Raistlin]

Please could I remind everybody that the OP's question was specifically concerned with a cold call that they had received in relation to their Virgin Media Internet Service and ask that people try to keep to that topic.

Thanks :)

[DaggaDagga]

Please could I remind everybody that the OP's question was specifically concerned with a cold call that they had received in relation to their Virgin Media Internet Service and ask that people try to keep to that topic.

Thanks :)

A call in which they mentioned VOIP.