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MEMBERS OF THE public have been warned about a hoax call which purports to be from Eir offering to fix peoples’ internet connections.
Several people are reported to have received dubious calls to their landlines recently in which an automated voice claims to be ringing on behalf of the telecoms company.
The recording tells people that their internet connection has been “compromised”, and prompts them to press 1 to transfer to an operator who will “secure” it.
It is believed that the call is an attempt obtain personal details or a sum of money from unwitting individuals.
A number of similar frauds have been reported in Ireland in recent years, with an Indian-based scam from 2014 bearing similarity to the latest hoax.
Peter Horgan / TwitterScam @eir phone calls in the Blackrock and Douglas areas in the last number of days. Just received one myself. Let vulnerable neighbours and relatives know to ignore. pic.twitter.com/gm0rBhhwTe
— Cllr Peter Horgan (@horganp) July 17, 2018
Labour Party representative for Cork City South East, Peter Horgan is among those to have been contacted.
He said he believing the call was a scam right away because Eir is not his internet provider.
He told TheJournal.ie that he has heard from a number of people in the Blackrock and Douglas areas of Cork who have received similar calls recently.
“As soon as I picked up, I recognised the voice from an old Windows speech-to-text programme that I remember from a few years ago,” he said.
“It said something like: ‘This is EirCare. Your internet has been compromised. To secure your internet, press 1.’
“I knew it was a scam because I’m not an Eir customer, so I just hung up.”
Horgan believes that older people are particularly vulnerable to the scam, as he says many refer to their broadband as ‘Eir’, even if they are with another provider.
He said: “The Government talks about internet safety, but it seems to be mostly for younger people – I really think that older people need to be made aware of the dangers that can be out there as well.
“I was talking to an 89-year-old man who recently got a call to say that his daughter was in some kind of trouble in England.
“He thought that she might have been there on holiday or something, not knowing it was a scam. He was asked to hand over a sum and they ended up getting around €2,000 out of him.”
A spokesperson for Eir said that its fraud department was investigating the calls, and said anyone who receives similar calls should take note of the caller’s number and inform their customer care team.
If you think you could be affected by hoax callers, communications regulator ComReg has previously offered the following advice if a scammer calls:
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The fact that Eir are supposedly trying to do anything to fix something should be your first warning sign.
It’s been happening the last 2 weeks. They rang every phone in our office….. a software company. Fun times.
@Do the Bort man:
@Do the Bort man: I kept.them.on the phone ages for the craic.
“There is a problem vit you vindows”
Really?
I just had them cleaned last week!
Then I tell them.im.following their instructions and when we’re ages on the call I say:
“Sorry, did you want me to turn on my computer?”
@Tim Hayes: what are you trying to tell us tim
They said I could lose my connection to the Journal.ie…….. I told them everything!
Similar scam was going on a few years back with an Irish Water thing. Oh wait that was an actual government scam.
I received this call from “eir” last week in the office. They said a bunch of technical terms for our internet at the beginning of the conversation, understandably I hadn’t a clue what they were on about. Yet they had asked where was the modem in the HOUSE…
Alarm bells were ringing there and I abruptly said its an office! “Patrick Marshall” on the other end (As if that’s his real name…) started to quickly fumble over his script, asked if I was the owner and… “could not proceed any further” unless I was the owner. Suited me and I hung up, made eir aware of this and all you get is “yeah it’s happening a lot, just hang up on them”. When you’re a business with international clients, not knowing what number is going to call you, it’s pretty hard to just ‘hang up’.
However, I am open to not answering anymore phone calls for the remainder of my employment :)
We get regular calls from ‘Stephen’, ‘Graham’, and ‘Mark’, from Microsoft, Windows, or Visa Debit Card Security Dept. I got bored listening to them rabbit on, so now I just leave the phone receiver on the table, get a cuppa & do whatever. Run up their phone bill.
Had the normal Indian scam one the other day, played along for 30 minutes – hopefully saved someone else
This scam has been going on for many years now!
The cupla focal usually filters out cold callers and con callers.
“Go mo leisceil, A Chara, nil ach beagan Bearla agam!”
(I know the spelling is off – but you get the gist!)
Get rid of your landline, these scams rarely target mobile numbers
@Ian McNally: It’s worse on mobiles , I had a clown on a few weeks ago telling me he was ringing me from the credit card centre , I smelled a rat straight away fortunately even though it came up as a Dublin number, the one advantage of mobiles is that all numbers must state the calls origin , so if Albania etc comes up on your phone don’t answer it, but block it afterwards. Also if you do speak to these people do not give Yes and No answers if possible as they are now recording certain responses and using it as voice verification to sign you up to subscriptions etc .
I got one years ago saying my IP address had been compromised and I had to follow their instructions. They kept mentioning Microsoft at the time. The only question I kept asking was how did you get my phone number. Neither are linked. He couldn’t answer and eventually (after 10 minutes) hung up on ME!!!!! haha Rang Eircom and they didn’t care at all. I couldn’t understand how they couldn’t just send out an email to all customers warning of this.
This scam has been going on for years why is it only getting media coverage now
Your internet is compromised. That sentence should tell you that a donkey is giving you advice :-)
Got a call last Saturday morning allegedly from “Eircom” telling me that my connection with them would be terminated in 12 hours, as I’m not a customer of theirs I suspected a scam and tried to carry it on but they hung up!
Phone company’s should be made responsible for these calls. Its not good enough that the unsuspecting customers has to pay for these scams as like a reverse phone call charge.They are making plenty of money and I’m sure well able to afford to sort this problem.
Since few years ago, at sites like http://whycall.me and similar websites, I have read thousands of people reporting and complaining about similar scam calls. I think people should have been really aware of such scams now. However, we need to keep spreading the words and inform our family about these scams.
Got rid of the landline couple of years ago, cuts down on these calls, you still get some on mobile but not as much and you can block the number.
They’ve been pestering me these last few weeks, ringing daily, and sometimes even twice daily.
More worryingly, though is that they have got my name.
I just a call from 0731826 saying my internet was was going to be turned off and to press 1, I knew it was a scam as I am with another provider, so be careful when getting these calls and hang up.
I only ever got to mess with them once now I just get the hang up/ missed call ones
They’re still active. I just had a call along these lines, asking me to connect to a webpage, as follows: www . eirserver . ml. I refused to run the executable file, which presented, as I don’t trust anyone, who would take me to a download site, without first establishing their credentials. The Indian-sounding guy at the other end was very rude and said “what sort of a jerk do you think you are”. From Google, the .ml domain name is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Mali.
They are back!! Got that call on landline at noon yesterday.(14/2/2019). They actually use the EIR telephone number which really nearly convinces you that its genuine.
I got a call: your internet is compromised. I thought I was in a hacker movie! Recognized the scam after 4 word. At least try to be somewhat credible you scam piece of garbage.
I received two of these today.
The first was the automated voice telling me to press 1, etc. I smelled a rat and hung up immediately.
The second call came about an hour later with nobody on the other end of the line, I assume it was a ploy to get me to ring back. Again I hung up immediately.
have your say