Network Wizkid

Change Log

Date	Change
23/04/2024	Added an update to include a response from the telephony provider.

Today, I have managed to expose another scam targeting people throughout the United Kingdom.

Scam Summary

This scam is in the form of a telephone call and is therefore known as a vishing scam in the world of cyber security.

The caller is likely to have an India accent and they will pose as a call centre representative from the mobile phone network company, Three (3). Unfortunately, they’re scammers and NOT calling from the Three mobile phone company.

They will start by offering you a substantial discount on a mobile phone contract which claims to cancel out your existing contract. They will ask what price you currently pay for a contract and will likely position an offer that beats your existing contract.

Should the victim proceed with the scam, they will take important details from you and request the victims card information to proceed with the offer. The end goal is to obtain your personal information complete with card details to steal money from your account.

The full process is exposed below.

The Scam in Detail

The telephone call will come from the following number: 0800 058 4876.

The scammer identifies themselves as a member of staff calling from the mobile phone company Three. They will likely have an Indian accent and they will present the target victim with what will sound like an unbeatable mobile phone contract offer. Before presenting the target with the details of the offer, they will likely ask for information about the targets current contract bill. The scammer will do this to ensure that their fake offer beats any current contract price. While exposing the scam, I was presented with a 40% discount on my current Three contract despite not even having an existing contract with Three.

The following will give you an idea of the deal that I was presented while exposing the scam.

• Unlimited calls, texts, data and 1000 free minutes of International Roaming for £10 per month

Should the victim proceed unknowingly with this scam, the caller will transfer the call onto another scammer who is responsible for finishing the fake order. This person will reconfirm the deal the deal before getting to the key bits of information they need to complete their scam. They will claim as though they need the following details to send the victim their new sim card and to ensure that the new payments are set up successfully.

The scammer will first ask for the following personal details:

• Full Name
• Address
• Sort Code and Account Number

Once the above details have been provided, the scammer will then proceed to tell the victim that in order to make sure the sim card is delivered successfully, they will need to take a refundable ‘security hold’ payment of £35.00. They will say that this money will be refunded once the victim has received their sim card in the post.

At this point the scammer is attempting to steal the ‘crown jewels’ – the victims full card details. The scammer will ask for the following details to complete the fake offer:

• Long card number
• Name of the card
• Expiry date
• Card security number (CVV)

At this point, if the victim has unknowingly followed through with this scam, then the scammer now has all the information they need to steal money from the account.

Before the call ends, the scammer will ask if the victim has any other cards, loans or mortgages and then they will say that someone will call back within the hour to confirm the payment has been taken. At this point, they don’t intend to call the victim back so long as they have been successful in taking money from the victim’s account. Shamelessly, if they find that they cannot take money from the account provided, they will call back and attempt to gather other card details.

This scam is currently very active and so it’s important that this information is shared with as many people as possible to prevent the scammers from succeeding.

Further analysis shows that the phone number currently being used in this scam has been provided by a company called Colt Technology Services Limited. I will provide this information to this company and update this article in due course.

The same telephone number used in this scam has also been reported on another of other platforms. Below are a few more references:

08000584876 Who Called Me? | who-called.co.uk

08000584876: Three Mobile Marketing or Scam? Learn More! (unknownphone.com)

If you have any more information you would like to add about this scam, please feel free to comment below.

Update – 23/04/2024

• After reporting this matter to the telephony provider Colt Technologies, they have since reported that they have blocked the use of the telephone number that was being used as of 17th April 2024. While they didn’t mention whether they’ve reported the account holder/s to the police, I do hope that they did. I thanked Colt for taking the action that they did to put a stop to this scam and while I’m almost certain that this isn’t the end of the scammers unless they’re caught at lease this slows them down.