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O2 Customers Urged To Check Their Accounts After Scam

O2 Customers Urged To Check Their Accounts After Scam

Hundreds of customers reported being inundated with calls from African countries over the weekend

Amelia Ward

Amelia Ward

If you're on O2, you might want to check your account - because the network appears to have been hit by a phone scam over the weekend.

Hundreds of users reported being harassed by calls from numbers that their phones showed to be from other countries including Botswana, Guinea and Guyana.

Even when the number was blocked, a similar number from the same country would call back. People reported money being added to their phone bill and non-stop calls.

One O2 user wrote on Twitter: "@O2 what on earth is going on at the moment and why isn't this being spoken about? Lots of people have been having this issue; including myself! Over 60 calls in the last 24 hours from scam callers; is there anything that can be done to stop this?

Twitter

They then added: "I've just counted them... 134 in the last 12 ish hours... so actually probably well over 200 in the last 24 hours. Not including the ones I have deleted off of my calls list etc... this is ridiculous. The silence from your team is deafening."

O2 later responded, tweeting: "We're getting this looked at, please report spam callers by texting CALL to 7726 and we'll respond by asking for the number calling you. Please don't answer the call/call the number back. You might want to block the number by using the settings on your phone."

Twitter

Another Twitter user wrote: "Anyone else on @O2 getting scam phone calls every 10 mins from Botswana and Guyana?"

They received a reply from another frustrated customer, who wrote: "Yep we have had them non-stop since 7.45pm Friday. Spoke to O2 and their answer was change your number??? They have blocked international numbers for now which ain't ideal but that can take 24hrs to work, my wife answered one call by accident and it charged us £1.62."

Scams can occasionally hit customers with similar numbers that are used by individual networks - which can mean that it isn't a data breach as such, but that the numbers used by networks are similar.

The user is then tricked into answering, with the premium rate call debited from their account. Although it's not usually a large amount, when the scammers hit hundreds of people it soon adds up.

LADbible has contacted O2 for comment.

Featured Image Credit: PA/Twitter

Topics: UK News, Phones & Gadgets