93% helpful (106/115)
BellDRock
Community Manager

A fraud scam is targeting customers using phone calls, text or social media messages. These callers pose as representatives of service providers, often gaining trust by citing “recent outages in your area”, “a class action case”, or “research on service quality”. They may even provide fake employee numbers. Once trust is established, they offer tempting promotions for deals.

Next, they will ask for sensitive information such as Driver’s License number, credit card details, passwords, and multi-factor authentication (MFA) verification codes. If provided, this information is used to either take over the account and order devices and services, access other accounts or create additional accounts with other companies under the victim’s name.

 

What to watch for

Be cautious when receiving calls with very attractive offers or promotions. Remember, legitimate companies already have your personal information and will never ask you to provide it again. Be extra cautious if the phone number seems unfamiliar. Fraudsters can “spoof” or change the name and number that appears on your phone.

Additionally, be aware of text messages from 10-digit numbers offering special offers. Those are often scams, so ignore and delete them immediately.

What to know

Fraudsters are very skillful, sound professional and can be very convincing.  Bell is aware of the techniques fraudsters use and follows practices to protect your account and personal information. Bell will never:

  • Request personal information such as credit cards, banking information, or passwords over the phone unless responding directly to an inquiry made by you
  • Request the MFA code received when logging in to your account
  • Pressure you to make an urgent decision  

What can you do to protect yourself and prevent fraud?

  • Trust your instincts – if you answered a suspicious call, hang up
  • Be wary of unsolicited offers or ones that appear “too good to be true”
  • Never provide personal information over the phone unless you initiated the call
  • Do not share your username, password or MFA/ one-time verification codes
  • Regularly monitor your accounts for unusual transactions
  • If you receive a call from your service provider and are suspicious, advise them that you will call them back. Bell customers can reach Bell by dialing 310-BELL (2355)
  • Report any unauthorized transactions (email confirmations) to your service provider
  • Regularly check your credit reports (Equifax/Trans-Union) for any unusual activity

What to do if you suspect fraud

If you believe you may be the victim of fraud there are a few things you can do:

  • Log in to your account and change your password
  • If there is any suspicious activity on your Bell account report it to Bell Loss Prevention, by contacting 1-800-509-9904
  • Report it to the Canadian Anti Fraud CentreOpens in a new tab or window via their Online Reporting SystemOpens in a new tab or window or by phone at 1-888-495-8501
  • Report it to local police

 

To learn more about how you can protect yourself online we encourage you to read our other articles plus visit Bell.ca/securityOpens in a new tab or windowfor more in depth information.

 

 

 

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Comments
VYRUS1978
Contributor

Well ,I almost was had but I'm vigilant when it comes to this stuff,they knew my info,where I lived and what my last payment was....so to me this is telling me it's a disgruntled ex employee or employee,so was there a loss of confidentiality.....

JSecuritycOm
Contributor

exceptional! security first to help stop any fraud or any APT level hacks.. this is top of line great information 

Abdul Qureshi
Contributor

Thanks my help

Snackball_Tech
Contributor

Great job, customers should be aware and informed of the latest threats to their business health and wellbeing. 

BrainsB4Emotions
Contributor II

A few tips I have to automatically tell if a caller is a scam or not is to listen to their phone line & voice. If their phone line is of poor or even less than normal Bell Canada quality, then most likely it is a SCAM call originating overseas so beware. Also be alert when they ask for your driver's license number & financial card numbers.

Those callers are scammers for sure even when they are 'offering a great price" deal on Bell services! Bell will never ask clients for that. Be aware. Say you will call the real Bell Canada to verify the offer & hang up.

 Cheerio.

ReallyAnnoyed
Contributor II

I had a call this afternoon from someone who said they were with Bell.  They offered 50% discount on my bill because I was a senior.  I knew it was a scam right away because Bell would never offer 50% on anything!!  BUT, how did they know I was a senior and had been with Bell over 40 years???

BrainsB4Emotions
Contributor II

Hi ReallyAnnoyed > I had the same call from a scammer who was using a low quality non-Bell phone line.  OK because he offered such a great deal at 50% off my Bell services, I also gave them my Mastercard number.  During the conversation, later now, it became clear that it was a scam & the next day when I checked my Mastercard statement, there was a unauthorized charge on it from North Korea I believe. I called Mastercard to tell them it was a scam fraud & by today they have recovered my money & reversed the scam fraud charge. It took a few days to effect this.

I think the scammers knew you were a senior because you probably have their malware on your computer or printer or even your modem & they know these facts about you. I advise checking out your computer, printer & modem to verify that they are either clean or infected with malware. Hope this helps to resolve your dilemma. Cheerio.

dks
Community All-Star
Community All-Star

This morning I received a call from someone purporting to be from Bell Canada, wanting to upgrade my "router" to get the fastest speeds possible of fibre service. The call was a scam. I knew this because, 

1) The call was a local call from my own exchange. There was no caller ID saying it was from Bell. 

2) I already have the proper modem (not router) for the fastest speed that Bell offers on fibre. 

3) They told me to press "1" to speak to a trusted Bell technician. 

I hung up. 

 

BrainsB4Emotions
Contributor II

Hi dks > I had the same call this morning using a non-Bell UNIDENTIFIED phone number but I played them along to verify their story. They claimed that my MODEM was unsecure & they wanted to send a techie out to replace my modem.

I said I would call Bell to verify all this & hung up. Be aware that there are a lot of scam calls these days & we need to verify everything that is claimed by calling the real Bell to verify it. The Bell support rep said their modem is secure & any malware likely resides on one's own computer or peripherals like a printer or laptop etc. You made the right decision to hang up. Cheerio.

DAVIDRMOSS
Contributor

i also had one the other day knew it was a scam when he asked for my driving license bell would never do that

Irish
Contributor

I get at least 4-5 calls per week from these people purportedly from Bell Mobility. They asked for my email address and that they would email me info on the “deal” and I could respond via email. I said no I’ll contact Bell first to clarify the offer and respond that way - they said no you have to reply to the email!! Yea right!! Moving on -and no I didn’t give them my email address. I wonder why there’s so many pretending to be Bell. I don’t get any pretending to be Rogers or Telus!! 

BrainsB4Emotions
Contributor II

Hi Irish > I think that Bell is the largest "telco" out there by market size & that maybe why the scam callers focus on it so much. The Bell competitors are smaller sized & thus attract less attention in my opinion. I just had another scam call purporting to be Bell as well just like you did but I only get about say two of these calls a week so far on average so I don't know why you get so many. Cheerio.  

Scammedbyneveragain
Contributor

I have been scammed by a Bell agent who KNOWS all of my Bell account details! Note that I did not give any key information to the person, and he just mentioned to me all my details CORRECTLY. Then he placed an order of a mobile phone upgrade with $100 monthly payments in which i did not want. When I was calling him back, he never answered me anymore. 

Blue72
Contributor

I just got one of these calls a couple of days ago. We get them probably once a month, always the same one offering a discount of 30 or 40% on our Bell services. This one is super easy to spot though because the first question they ask is usually "are you with Bell or Roger's?". If they were really calling from Bell they would already know we are Bell customers. Or, like the last one, they will ask which services we have. When I replied "If you are calling from Bell you should know that"  he said "This is the promotions department we don't have access to that information ". He kept talking about the deal they were offering, I said l would call Bell and talk to them about it, then he tried to keep me on the line by asking if we are happy with our service. This is another one of their tactics, because they know a lot of people will be unhappy about the amount they are paying or because of outages or something. I just hung up at that point. When I checked the number he was calling from it came up as being in Woodstock, Ontario but it could be literally anywhere in the world.  

As others have said, there are lots of signs to listen for, even before they start asking questions.  A lot of background noise is one. Poorly spoken English can also be a red flag since employees of Bell Canada always speak English well. And never trust the number they are calling from, as was mentioned in the original post. Scammers spoofed my cell number once a few years ago and I kept getting calls from angry people insisting that I had called them. One man called several times and refused to believe me when I said I never called him. The best thing to do is just say no to everything. If you are worried about missing out on a deal, call Bell and ask if there really is one. In my experience, it's not very likely. And it certainly won't be anything like 30% off. 

BrainsB4Emotions
Contributor II

Hi Scammedbyneveragain > I think you may have MALWARE on your PC & that is why the scammer knew all of your Bell account details. I have Staples Tech Easy to solve all of my malware & PC issues. I recommend them whole heartily. Check them out for yourself. It is only $20.00 @ month. A good deal in my opinion. Cheerio.

Concerneduser
Contributor

Got scammed today but someone calling my Bell mobile phone pretending to be a Bell agent indicating I had Bell loyalty reward points.  He indicated that he would provide me 30% off my current account costs and then offered a new iPhone or Android phone as a gift for being a loyal customer.  He asked for my email address and then he texted me a security code which he asked me to repeat back to him.  I followed his instructions and then he provided me all of my account information back to me including address, phone number, last payment etc.  I suspected that this offer was too good to be true and ask for him to provide his number so I could call him back, he offered to have his supervisor to call me back to verify.  I agreed, then I ended the call.  I then proceeded to try to login to MyBell account and realized that my account had been hacked because my password no longer worked, I immediately called 611 to talk directly to Bell customer service to check on the possible scam/hack.  During the discussion the Bell customer agent sent me the same email for the security code as the scammer sent and asked me for the code in the same manner.  I provided the code to her because this time I knew she was a real agent because I initiated the call to Bell directly.  The agent then told me that she could see that a new iPhone had already been ordered on my account.  I told her at that point in time that I had been scammed and my account had been compromised and I personally did not order the phone.  She told me that she could not cancel the order and that what I should do is refuse the new phone when it is delivered to me which will ensure it will get returned back to Bell.  I think this is ridiculous because I'm sure the agent could tell she was speaking with me directly from my Bell mobile phone and that she had already verified my identity, so why couldn't she cancel the fraudulent order?  Even if I had actually made the order why would she not be able to cancel it since it had not been processed or shipped yet?  You would think a large company like Bell should be able to handle cancellations in a much better fashion as long as the device has not left their possession or premises.  How did the scammers get all my information from simply obtaining my email address, there is definitely a bad security breach being used by the scammers against Bell.  This is insane, I think I might consider cancelling my services and moving over to Telus or Rogers! 

BellAntgio
Moderator

Hey there @Concerneduser , 

Welcome to the Community and thanks for bringing this to our attention. 

We will be reaching out to gather more details and help as best as we can.

Please check your Messages within your profile avatar in the top right corner.

Unsure how to check or send a private message? See How to send a private messageOpens in a new tab or window

Concerneduser
Contributor

Hello All,

I just wanted to update this thread to advise that everything that has been done to this point is best effort by Bell, however I was advised by the Bell Loss Prevention team at 1-800-509-9904 that Customer Service and even the Bell Forum members and moderators should be advising people to contact the Bell Loss Prevention team at 1-800-509-9904 immediately so they can advise the customer on how to proceed if the customer believes they or their Bell account has been compromised.  Interesting, that it was only today that I was advised to take this course of action.  We are now 6 days past the first time I spoke directly to a Bell representative by calling 611 about this issue.  Incidentally, there has been two other Bell personnel that have tried to help but apparently according to Bell Loss Prevention both had the wrong information about how to proceed.

NICE!!!

Thanks

Concerneduser

dks
Community All-Star
Community All-Star

Thank you for sharing the information you have learned. That is what this forum is all about. The phone number is included in a Bell staff post in this thread which is marked as a solution with a green checkmark. Again, thank you. 

Mitchd1964
Contributor II
  • Was just taken by a fraudsters?  Didn't want to give personal information but he sounded convincing...and had to change my password to my account immediately after the call...because tried to sign into my account and was told wrong information...so backdoor my way in and changed my password 
  •  
stuart jackson
Contributor II

I just seen another scam out there where company said you can get paid $1,500,000 if you 10 minute Time online text message and I'll be watching scam I didn't go that smell something not right there

Mitchd1964
Contributor II

Was called again today and they offered me 40% off my phone bill for a year and a 11.9in tablet, second call in 4 days...I was hand picked because of my loyalty to Bell! Informed the caller that their number and had been reported to Bell...immediately hung up!  How rude...lol 

dks
Community All-Star
Community All-Star

Good catch! There is an old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." We all have to be smart about this. 

Steve West Coast
Contributor III

One of the problems, not raised in this thread, is that Bell calls its customers to offer services.  When I have received a series of suspicious calls, I have several times called Bell to determine if they had called.  Unfortunately, Bell has confirmed more than once that their marketing department had called. 

More than once I have gone through the process to be escalated to someone (typically after an hour or more in queues), who then promised to remove my number from their list of Bell accounts that could be called by Bell marketing.  Further, this process to block Bell from marketing calls supposedly takes a long time, I recall about 28 business days or something like that.   There is also a marketing preferences selection to make in account profile, but Bell told me this has no effect on their internal department who might call.

The bottom line should be for Bell should stop their internal marketing department from calling customers, as they make no attempt to differentiate themselves from the scammers, despite Bell being well aware of the customers being targeted this way.

For all the apologists on this forum that say on the various threads that Bell would never make calls like this, get real, Bell admits they make these calls.   Bell needs to shape up if they care about being a truly reputable company.  Improved behaviour aligned with their supposed values, is the criteria for customers to develop loyalty. 

In the meantime, Bell provides a commodity service in the quasi-monopoly of Canadian mobility providers.  In the absence of any improvement and differentiation of service and customer-centric policy, the lowest price is the only real criteria for selecting mobility service from the major three.

dks
Community All-Star
Community All-Star

Thank you for your thoughts. One of my providers is not Bell. I do not answer their marketing calls. I don't feel compelled to answer calls from numbers I do not recognize. I can't answer questions about Bell's marketing practices, but I don't get calls from them with four services. I also don't respond to callers who don't leave messages. Others may have more effective ways to not respond to or screen callers. Perhaps people coul;d share their strategies. My own approach is, "My phone, I am in charge." 

BrainsB4Emotions
Contributor II

Hi @dks > I like your idea of being in charge of your own phone line number & thus not responding to phone calls when either you do not recognize their phone number or else they do not leave a message for you. The scammers & the hackers of this world are now utilizing computer technology to mask their true phone number that they call from & by not responding to their calls, you save yourself a lot of wasted time & possibly save money as well when scammers call to trick you into a scam. Thanks for  the idea pal & Cheerio.

BrainsB4Emotions
Contributor II

I have a suggestion for Bell's marketing department to use in future. > The vast majority of the phone calls I receive come from unknown numbers as Bell is now blocking all non-Bell phone line numbers from showing on my caller ID & a small number of these calls claim to be selling Bell services. I now always call Bell back to confirm any good offers they are claiming & the majority of these calls are scams.   My suggestion is to have Bell to only allow their marketing department to place phone calls to existing Bell clients from a Bell phone line number only so that clients can visually see the Bell phone line number on their caller ID & thus they will then know that the Bell call is legitimate. This should clear up all the confusion over who is calling from Bell & who is not & thus is a scammer. This would save Bell money by not needing to provide support to callers inquiring whether a call they received is legitimate or not. Good idea in my opinion. Cheerio.

Soannoyed
Contributor

There is a scam where they acknowledge that you are a Bell customer and as such are authorized to receive a new router due to fibre cables installed in your area. They want you to sign in on your computer to fill out a form which they need to help you with. I did sign in - it took quite awhile. But then clued in and went no further, shut computer off and hung up the phone. 

BrainsB4Emotions
Contributor II

Hi @Soannoyed > Bell installed fibre optic cable in my area some years ago & I now have a 3GB internet Bell service & am very happy with the speed upgrade. When these type of scammers call me & they do nowadays, & they do repeatedly call,  I just hangup on them as they are a pure waste of my time. I suggest doing likewise in future when they repeatedly call & they will. They do not stop calling just because you have hungup on them in the past. Cheerio.

Jho
Contributor

An Indian hacker called me twice to reduce my monthly payment. I ended  up giving my email and a verification code from Bell — then he tried to log into my account the automatically I got it was a scam. Then I changed my password and PIN and got some instruction from Bell.  

Do no let your information be compromised.

 

BrainsB4Emotions
Contributor II

Hi @Jho > When you say that you got a VERIFICATION CODE that you claim came from BELL, it probably came from the hackers instead if all you did was to click on a link that the hackers sent you using a fake Bell email logo. That is a well known scam they use to trick people like you into believing that Bell has provided their consent for this scam. Be aware. Cheerio.