Phone call claiming to be o2 and asking for id code on text I received whilst on the call.

[Mutchy]

I received a phone call from someone telling me that due to me paying my bills on time o2 would reward me with a 40% discount. They said that I would receive two text messages as we were talking and hey ho two messages arrived from o2, one with a code for accessing my account. The person on the phone asked me to give him the code that I had just received. I read the text message and it clearly says not to give the code to anyone not even o2 as they would never ask for it. The caller was very persistent in asking for the code until I hung up. Be safe everyone. 

[viridis]

This seems to be a common scam this week.

Wonder how many customers will get screwed over before o2 sends out a network wide text reminding customers to NEVER give anyone, even from o2 on the phone, your one time passcode.

@Chris_K 

[MI5]

2 texts are sent.

The first one states that you should never give the passcode which will be sent following, to anyone.

So the process is already in place if customers read and follow the instructions.

[Chris_K]

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@viridis wrote:

This seems to be a common scam this week.

Wonder how many customers will get screwed over before o2 sends out a network wide text reminding customers to NEVER give anyone, even from o2 on the phone, your one time passcode.

@Chris_K 

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With the pre-OTAC warning SMS we send first, I feel that if customers aren't seeing that as a legitimate warning not to give their OTAC to anyone claiming to be from O2, then us sending a network-wide SMS may too go unnoticed by some. Eg, say we sent that network-wide reminder today, and a customer got a similar call tomorrow - if these criminals are convincing enough then unfortunately customers may still fall foul. Who wouldn't love 40% off their bill, or a free iPhone they won in a competition that they never actually entered into?

I don't have any stats to hand that I can share, but fraud has reduced since we introduced the pre-OTAC warning so we know that it has worked and serves as a stark reminder to folk not to give those codes out to anyone so I feel those are likely to help protect more customers since it's sent *every* time an OTAC is requested, and not just a one-time network-wide text customers may have forgot about days/weeks/months down the line.

We are always looking at ways to help further protect and shield customers from fraud and scammers, and we're trying to increase awareness of this to help keep it front of mind and hopefully result in less customers being duped. Got your DM here viridis around some ideas i'll reply to shortly

I'm glad you remained cautious and didn't fall foul to this scammer @Mutchy 👍