Identify fraud

[Joogles]

day 1
Please help. My mother looked at her EE account as the direct debit came out this month £2 more. When she logged on she saw that her dd was increasing to £75+ and that a new phone had been ordered.  Obviously this isn’t her.  She is saying she googled a number for ee on her phone, then called it to say she didn’t order a phone. The person said they will cancel it.  We now know fraud has been committed but just can’t work out how.  When she googled EE a number came up with we now know is not EE, she then received emails ( an 0333 number).  

1st EE has changed the billing address call 150 if this wasn’t you 

2nd ee. Thank you for ordering a £1600 phone and the dd details. Within six minutes of last email. 

3rd email we now know is a fake ee email saying the order has been cancelled 

sadly she didn’t see these emails until today (day 5) when I tried to unravel it 

all of this happened within 30 minutes. 

day 2 dpd saying they are delivering or have delivered 

called ee, they put a stop on the phone and have sent it to the fraud team 

today I’ve seen the number she called, it’s no longer working. It doesn’t appear on Google anywhere. I’ve looked at her search history I can see she searched ee.  

I can only conclude that her phone was hacked and when she put ee into Google it gave her this number 

action fraud and ee said it’s unlikely and are saying someone has prob called her and got her login details that way.  I don’t believe they have. I’ve been through her whole call history.  The only interaction she had was going to a sim only deal in a ee shop back in May. 

waiting for the fraud team to come back but can anyone advise what may have happened.   ( a lucky coincidence that her Dd came out the same time the phone was ordered ) 

the phone was delivered to an address  at other end of the country. 

[XRaySpeX]

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@Joogles wrote:

I can only conclude that her phone was hacked and when she put ee into Google it gave her this number 

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You would conclude wrong! Her phone is not hacked. It's her Googling that put her extremely at risk. It is extremely dangerous to rely on Google for searches for organisations' phone nos. Anybody could put anything up there & you've no way on knowing whether it is pukka. To obtain a verifiable phone no. of an organisation you must ask the horse's mouth & go to the organisation's own site to look up its phone no.

[Joogles]

Hi. Thanks.  Whilst I understand not to trust Google search how else did we get into this situation?  The order happened before she phoned. It’s a complete mystery 

[Rach_H]

Hi @Joogles 

I'm so sorry to hear about what has happened with your mum's order. It does sound like something odd is happening here, but I'm sure the fraud team will be able to get to the bottom of this for you.

Rach

[ian_whitworth]

I have had something similar, i received a text stating a new esim has been ordered, then a few minutes later someone called "claiming to be from EE security", weird was i was away in a foreign country when this happened. (it came from the legit ee text message folder)

the person claiming to be from EE wanted to know if should cancel it, and it was not just an esim but 2 iphone pro 15s in london as well.

the guy sounded british but struggled to pronounce a street name, so i ended up hanging up and calling EE direct and was on the phone for 50 minutes trying t rectify, almost self doubting myself.

i reckon he was probably hoping i would give a 1 time access code then this may happen to me also.

on my account there had been an attempy but no response from security to say they tried calling.

[Joogles]

Glad you were on the ball. We are still waiting to hear from the fraud department although it looks like the phone has been credited out but still shows on the account.

whilst everyone I’ve spoken to at EE have been kind and shown lots of empathy actually getting any answers is awful.    

They actually blacklisted my mums old phone rather than the iPhone that was delivered 165 miles away - that hasn’t helped my confidence in getting it sorted.

[Leanne_T]

Morning @Joogles 

Thanks for coming back to us. 

I am sorry this is still ongoing, you have done the right thing reporting this to us so the fraud team can investigate. 

Have you spoken to our mobile guides to get your Mum's phone looked into? 

Speak soon.

Leanne. 

[Joogles]

Yes, several times in the past ten days. Received a text yesterday to say the investigation is completed and a letter would be sent in the post.  Seems the fraud team don’t talk to their customers!  I’ve sorted my mums phone out with you.    

[Leanne_T]

Hi @Joogles 

If you would like an update from the fraud investigation before you receive the letter, please try calling us again. 

Leanne.