I just had a very concerning experience with a likely fraudster/scammer pretending to be Three. He called from a landline number (as you can imagine, when I googled it, it was listed as a number for a takeaway in Scotland, likely nothing to do with this scam)
He was offering half-off my bill as I am an existing customer. Suspecting it was a scam, I didn't give him more than my name initially, I thought this is common information. It proceeded and I thought maybe it could be legit, but grew wary when he asked for my model of my phone, offering other upgrades and the for my household.
THEN, and this is the kicker, he said he had sent me a verification code, which came from Three (I had a previous text message thread containing more of these) so I gave it to him... stupid, I realised later with some clarity of thought.
I then received a text message from Three saying my email address had been changed. This set off the alarm bells. LUCKILY, I was already logged into my Three mobile app during this suspicious call, so I had access to my account still. The email address has been changed to terminator****@hotmail.com. I immediately hung up, but in a way that would not arise suspicion.
I managed to call Three, although I had to fein interest in an account upgrade to get to a real person quickly, this should be fixed! And the advisor there was very helpful, he told me however that Three had no record of calling me that day or any time recently. I managed to set up a pin and whatnot and change my email address back and get my account back.
However, I was lucky! Please be careful with this scammers, because, yes, in hindsight it seems obvious, but when you're on the phone not everyone is as savvy, I wasn't! It's scary because ACTUAL Three ask you for these verification codes, and it came from their number both times. But the first caller wasn't Three. They must have had my details from a security leak elsewhere, and somehow got in and sent that verification through.
Be careful out there people!
