Voicemail hacked? This is what to do!

[Oxygen87]

On Saturday night around 11:30pm, I received a phone call from a private number, thinking it was the alarm sounding at work, I answered the phone. The person on the other end was a man with a Scottish accent, talking rather fast and saying that I'd missed a call from him. He was going on about something but I didn't really catch it all because of his strong accent and how fast he was talking. I had no idea who this guy was and I'd certainly not called his phone. I hung up because something didn't seem right.
Immediately after this the phone rang again from another private number. I cancelled the call which diverted it to my Voicemail automatically.

My Voicemail was then blocked due to someone entering the wrong pin code numerous times. This wasn't me!

Because the time of night was late, I couldn't call O2 Customer Services as they were closed, the community was down due to maintenance and I was at work the next morning at 6am so I had to just leave it.

The next day, my Voicemail was connecting but I was locked out of my Voicemail by it requesting a pin. That pin number wasn't my pin, it had been changed, much to my horror!

I decided to take to Twitter and message O2 on there. They helped me gain access to my Voicemail again.

If this happens to you, you must reset your pin. To reset your pin, you need to send a text message with the word RESET to 802901. You will then be sent a text message with a temporary pin. Call Voicemail on 901 and enter your temporary pin. Then head to Mailbox settings and then Security settings and enter a new 4 to 10 digit pin.

My Voicemails had been deleted due to this hack. I personally don't feel safe leaving sensitive messages on there anymore. What's worse is that I didn't get a message from O2 to say that my Voicemail had been accessed from another phone, something which EE do religiously. I've had to access my Voicemail from another phone a few times before as an EE customer and I always got a text to say that this had happened. With O2, I only knew because I just called Voicemail for a completely different reason, I wanted to jot down a number that had been left for me earlier in the day.
I think that O2 really need to implement this feature as a source of security for the customer.

[jonsie]

Good info @Oxygen87 and it's alarming that scammers have now found what would seem a new way of hacking into voicemails. I have voicemail switched off as a preference but people who rely on this when they are in meetings or sleeping would seem to be vulnerable or prone to this. Even changing your pin regularly would appear to pointless if scammers are somehow getting into voicemail regardless.

[MI5]

You must be someone famous then.
No reason for anyone to hack a normal persons VM

[jonsie]

Infamous...

[Oxygen87]

I'm definitely not famous. I wish I was, I'd be rich but my voicemail definitely did get hacked. I have no idea why! All I saw when I did a bit of research is that they can do it by using some software. If this happens to others, I'm just making them aware of what to do.

[TallTrees]

Thank you @Oxygen87
Terrible for you to have that experience.
Beat wishes TallTrees

[Cleoriff]

That sounds awful @Oxygen87 . Thanks for the heads up

[Martin-O2]

Glad you got this one sorted so quickly @Oxygen87 and thanks for sharing the steps on what to do if this happens, it will be really useful for anyone else in a similar situation.