Call from O2 - phising or genuine?

Stugots

I just received a call from my mobile service provider O2, or at least the caller claimed to be from O2, but the caller came up as 'Anonymous' on my phone. The caller wished to 'check that I'm on the best rate' and asked a few security questions to confirm my identity.

I suspect that the call was genuine, but what kind of idiots are they? They wouldn't do this via email as everyone is wary of phishing scams, why would they do it over the phone where I have no way to confirm who is calling.

I told him I wasn't comfortable answering security questions when I had not initiated the call and hung up.

I also had the same scenario from Permanent TSB recently and they didn't see any problem with this in follow-up emails. Its only a matter of time before someone latches on to this...

KoolKid

Have you rang O2 back to confirm if it was them?

seamus

No company will ever call you and ask you to answer security questions. They called you, so they have no need to verify that you are the right person.

Stugots

I filled in the query form on the O2 website. and got the following reply:

"Thanks for your email. We’re going to look into it straight away,

We appreciate you taking the time to tell us how you feel. We want to update you as soon as possible so we won’t take any longer than 3 working days to get back to you.

Again, thanks for your feedback

O2"

Stugots

seamus wrote: »

No company will ever call you and ask you to answer security questions. They called you, so they have no need to verify that you are the right person.

Unfortuantely, although we all agree that they should not, some companies do call and then ask security questions. As noted above, I had this experience with Permanent TSB recently. At least they did not block caller ID, but I still was not comfortable answering security questions so I terminated the call. They confirmed later by email that the call was genuine and said I had been informed in the post to expect it, so everything was OK in their opinion.

Lil' Smiler

I've had calls from Vodafone before doing surveys etc and the call come sup as anonymous

munstergirl

I would guess they ask security questions to make sure its you on the phone. People do leave phones lying around.(data protection) you could ask them some too) what number do i dial the most?
Sounds like your coming out of contract soon, or on the wrong plan.
I hate cold calls. I just say not interested and hang up.

liamo

I received a sales call from TSB a few months ago.

The caller asked a couple of security questions and - although I didn't doubt that the call was, in fact, genuine - out of principle I declined to answer them and (wanting to have a little fun) turned it around and asked the caller to give me the answers to those questions in order to verify that he was who he said he was.

Naturally, he wasn't going to answer the questions and I ended up calling TSB and being put through to him to find out what he wanted, but his spluttering and stuttering as he tried to grapple with this new situation was very amusing (even if a little childish).

I can't claim credit for this as it wasn't my idea. I read about it a while back, perhaps on boards.ie somewhere. But it's a good way to amuse yourself for a few minutes in work when you get a cold call.

Stugots

Finally a response from O2:

"Firstly, please permit me to confirm that the call you received was made on behalf of O2. We have engaged a third party provider to contact selected postpay customers offering the opportunity to review their price plans with a view to offering better value and saving money. I can confirm that it was in relation to this promotion that you were contacted.

You should have been offered a text message as proof that the call is coming from O2, as we have a text message set up whereby the sender is listed as O2. We have reviewed this matter and the Representative that contacted you has been identified and any training needs highlighted as a result of your feedback have been addressed with this Representative."

BaconZombie

AIB do this all the time;

They are with some normal script but then say:

...We just need to confirm you are the John Doe, we have listed here...
What is your full address.....

I normally reply with :

...Can you please confirm you are AIB first.....

Then the fun begins.....

seamus wrote: »

No company will ever call you and ask you to answer security questions. They called you, so they have no need to verify that you are the right person.