Service provider impersonation scam

[BellDRock]

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.                                                                                                    ❗You should never share your one-time verification code with anyone. It should be used only on a Bell multi-factor authentication (MFA) validation screen (e.g., when logging in or making changes to your MFA details).

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 Centre via their Online Reporting System 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/securityfor more in depth information.

• How to Identify fraud
• How to identify phishing or smishing
• Protecting your digital footprint

[VYRUS1978]

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]

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

[Abdul Qureshi]

Thanks my help

[Snackball_Tech]

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

[BrainsB4Emotions]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 message

[Concerneduser]

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]

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]

• 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[DAVIDRMOSS]

just had a phone call from someone pretending to be from bell trying to upgrade my modem the phone call is a scam hang up and retry the number you will find it is a dead line  then report it to bell

[BrainsB4Emotions]

Hi @DAVIDRMOSS > In your message above you say that when people get scam calls they should report it to Bell but will Bell be able to stop these calls if people do report it? Can Bell actually identify the real phone number that they are using to call from or is that a "spoofed" number as well & if so then is it unidentifiable or can Bell somehow obtain the real number the scammers are calling from?

I would like to know so I can stop my repeat scam calls if possible. They are annoying & they are repetitive as well.

[Skeptic]

I received a call this afternoon on our landline from someone claiming to be a Bell representative, offering a 50% discount on our account for two years. He knew my name, gave an employee # when asked, asked for the amount of my last bill, then transferred my call to his "supervisor" to confirm acceptance of the offer. It sounded like the same individual who then asked for my email address. I said I needed a call back number to confirm the call was from Bell. I was given the same 800 # that appeared on the call display. When I did a reverse lookup on Canada 411 it turned out to be a Verizon landline # from Virginia Beach, U.S. Five minutes later I received an identical call from the same number. Watch out for this number: 804-214-****.

[BrainsB4Emotions]

Hi @Skeptic 🤨 > Sounds like you easily identified several RED FLAGS during the call & rightly so for doing that as they stand out as swore thumbs to knowledgeable people. That is why Bell has this forum to educate all Bell clients so we do not get taken in by these scammers & hackers which they will do to those who give them their info. A neighbour of mine told me that Bell often gets equipment orders from these scammers who have taken over Bell duped client accounts & then they operate them illegally to order Bell equipment that will ultimately be sent overseas to third world countries. The poor Bell duped client is then stuck with the Bell equipment bill as it was ordered from their Bell account. That is just one of their primary objectives in operating these scams & there are others as well. Be aware. Cheerio.

[Lou1]

i received an email from BELL saying my Bell e-bill is ready,

the account number was not mine, and could not locate the bill on my myBell account, only had my November bill as current.

looked at the sender id in the email and not from bell, so blocked this contact, and deleted the email.  

How to advise bell of these scam emails ?

thank you

[BrainsB4Emotions]

Hi @Lou1 😀 > The very top line email message or comment in this entire section which comes from @BellDRock

Community Manager provides your answer > it says to call Bell 

by dialing 310-BELL (2355)

Furthermore, it says to > 

• Report any unauthorized transactions (email confirmations) to your service provider.
• Just so you will know. Cheerio.

[Scammers]

I was almost scammed by a telephone number (437)***-**** offering lower price and free iwatch 9. Fortunately I realized and cancelled credit card and changed password on my bell account. Caller was Indian descent and I could hear many callers in background. They had my information and had to be involved with Bell or previous employee’s. Bell really needs to look into changing protocols and procedures for contacting clients. They even sent a welcome email with employee number and name Lisa and direct number +1 (343) ***-****.

[BrainsB4Emotions]

Hi @Scammers > Yes I agree that Bell Canada needs to tighten their protocols and procedures for contacting clients & this entire Bell Canada Forum, which you have now posted on, is the very first step in my opinion > IMO of them doing exactly that. I just hope that Bell can devise ways to identify these scammers & "nail" them for good so they are ALL PERMANENTLY put out of business. Unfortunately most of these scammers reside overseas as you have already identified so we customers are then left to fend for ourselves. That is why we need to be educated in scammer detection & PROTECTION. This Bell forum is a very good first step in that direction IMO. I like this forum for that very reason. Cheerio.

[dks]

Because telephone scams are part of the much larger crime of criminal fraud, this is a law enforcement matter. The  Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre , run by the RCMP, the OPP and Competition Bureau Canada are the responsible agencies. Bell can only protect their network and company from fraud. As consumers, we can increase our awareness of scams that can affect us. 

[BrainsB4Emotions]

Hi @dks > Thanks for the info. So Bell is already currently doing all that they can to protect us & that is a good thing IMO. Being a law enforcement matter, does that mean that we Bell clients must report these scam call attempts to the authorities by ourselves or does Bell do it for us? Please do clarify the status of this issue if you are aware of it so we all know what we must do inorder to try to stop the scam calls as they are well beyond just annoying & are repetitive.

[dks]

You can report fraud attempts to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre . If you are a victim of a crime, you should report it to police. A comprehensive response by Bell with things you can do can be found here.  

[Joroma]

I did get a call offering me monthly bill foe 2 yrs at $95. month   I forget what questions they asked me.. my address, do I live alone.  Stupid me. But I told them I had to leave.

[Arret-les]

I received a call last week that was telling me we had scammers that had infiltrated our email and my bank info. I asked him to repeat his name. He had me go in the system where there was a bunch of coding and a line at the bottom was saying that 9 scammers had infiltrated the system. He then transferred me to « security » where someone proceeded in telling me I could help catch the scammers. Just needed to go to the bank withdraw $5000, but not to worry they were working with CRA the catch the scammers  and to look in my bank app and I would see 8000.00 would be deposited in my account, which it did, though I then went in my iPad and it didn’t show it. I told him that and he said that I would see it there and the bank wouldn’t see it in order not to raise suspicion and in order to not interfere with the investigation because they suspected a bank employee being involved. Unfortunately, I should have trusted my instinct and not follow through. Anyways, I did get scammed and I am following procedures to report it to police, my bank and equifax and so on. I could kick myself in the butt, but it’s done and I just hope these little scammers get caught. 

[dks]

Thank you for the caution. I am sorry you were taken by scammers. You have done all the right things. This is a 21st century variation of the Bank Inspector scam. Bell, banks and credit card companies do not ever contact you for this reason, even if the Caller ID says the call is from Bell or a bank. As always, the best advice is to just hang up. Call Bell if you have the slightest question at 1-866-310-2355. And remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it always is. 

[WelshTerrier]

Good Day.

@Arret-les Thank you for reaching out and sharing this unfortunate situation with the membership of the Bell Community Forum. Next time.... just hang up! There is no reason for you to talk to fraudsters.

Fraudsters can impersonate anyone or any company that they wish to be in order to steal from you. Remember one thing, listen only, say nothing & share nothing! If in doubt call Bell directly.

Bell does not share your personal information with anyone else! Reputable companies such as Bell, banks, utilities & highly regarded services & institutions do not send you messages or make calls such as this! They do not call you asking to provide personal information.

Never share any personal information with anyone you do not know or trust! Do not open web links or messages in emails or text messages!

Please have a look at the following web links. It will explain just what I am saying with much more details.

Ten most common scams - Bell

Reporting security issues : Reporting potential security issues

It is far better to be safe today, than sorry tomorrow!

Take care.

[JML]

Learned alot thank you

[Huns]

I have recieved repeated calls from displayed name of Bell Canada and call number as 886 581 ****.

I knew is was not Bell because I have never given out that number. It is an emergency phone.

I get about 3 calls per week on that line. Only 2 from "Bell" but was concerned that they called back with the same call display the next day.

[Wakka 1971]

Yes and scammers are texting too about bell deals and other provider . It happens to me