In case you don't know,TalkTalk scam WARNING: Fraudsters target customers – how to know if you are being conned

FRAUDSTERS are targeting TalkTalk customers with broadband problems by pretending to be from the company’s technical support team, it has been revealed.

Customers were called within minutes of reporting an issue to the broadband provider. In each case the fraudster knew personal information about the victim. One customer, David Webb from Bath, received a phone call from a scam artist claiming to be able to assist him with his internet problem just 10 minutes after he had emailed TalkTalk’s customer service team about connection issues.Mr Webb said he was completely fooled. He said: “The hijackers persuaded me to give them remote access to my computer and hogged my phone line for five or six hours.” The scammers told Mr Webb that they had accidentally credited £4,000 rather than £200 promised compensation and asked him to refund them.

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Mr Webb’s bank, however, refused to authorise the payment as it recognised the fraudulent activity. Meanwhile, a retired IT technical support worker said that she was contacted on her landline within 30 minutes of contacting TalkTalk about slow broadband speeds. She claimed the fraudster said they would carry out some checks, however, after telling her that she was eligible for compensation, they tried to get her to open her account. She said: “They quoted a password that I used to have when TalkTalk data was hacked some time ago. “This is when I realised that it was a scam, so I quickly logged off and hung up.” Last year in August TalkTalk was fined £100,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for putting customer data at risk from fraudsters. The ICO’s investigation found that the company allowed large quantities of data to be accessed by staff which meant that exploitation was possible from rogue employees.

TalkTalk has stopped working with Indian call centres for customer support. Kathryn Cartwright, from Lincolnshire, said that she was called twice by people claiming they wanted to fix her broadband. She told the Times: “On the last occasion I was only saved because the caller asked me to log in and I reminded them that my problem was that I was unable to log in.” A spokesman for TalkTalk said that the company would investigate the complaints but suggested that the calls may be nothing than a coincidence. He said: “Unfortunately scams of all sorts are on the rise across Britain, which is why we are continually investing in new ways to protect our customers."