Spectrum Cable scam

[SmithOp]

I got a call today about an offer from Spectrum to lower my monthly bill. I played a long to see what the scam was because my cable bill never goes down!

Red Flags:
Offering 2 years at half my current monthly amount.
Wanted 6 months payment up front to activate the new contract.
Said it was a promotion sponsored by Target, and I needed to pay with Target gift cards by 5pm tomorrow.

He had all my account info, so obviously they had hacked my online account with Spectrum. I have auto billing to my credit card. He made a $2 payment to activate the offer, so obviously he was in my account. I got a text verifying the payment, with the alleged number to call tomorrow for the billing department to pay with the target gift cards. He must have got my cell number from my account.

He spent time instructing me how to get the gift cards, and not to discuss the purpose with the clerk at the store, another red flag!

I went online into my account and started a chat with Spectrum, they confirmed there is no such program with Target, and it's a scam.

I changed my password, security code, and security question. I noticed an additional Gmail account had been added so I removed that.

Be careful out there, the online world is full of sneaky rat bast***s!

 

[Patri]

Glad you are so savvy! Wonder if they will call you tomorrow, when you fail to call them.

 

[GetawaysRus]

I got a call today about an offer from Spectrum to lower my monthly bill. I played a ong to see what the scam was because my cable bill never goes down!

That's funny, but you're right. That's a dead giveaway. Not a very sophisticated scammer.

I like this one better than the one I've gotten a few times quite recently. I keep getting emails supposedly from PayPal informing me about my purchase of (pick one: an iPhone, a multiyear subscription to McAfee or Norton antivirus). I'm a big spender. Those charges are typically quite hefty, enough I'm sure to motivate someone to call the included phone number.

 

[SmithOp]

Glad you are so savvy! Wonder if they will call you tomorrow, when you fail to call them.

I blocked and reported the number as a scam, but they probably will try again with a new spoof number.

 

[TolmiePeak]

I blocked and reported the number as a scam, but they probably will try again with a new spoof number.

That is a waste of time. They have a spoofer that uses and different number everytime. The biggest scam is cable TV itself. Why paying hundreds of dollars every month for the privilege of watching commercials. Just cut the cord and cancel. Cable TV will be dead in a few years anyway.

 

[BJRSanDiego]

I got a call today about an offer from Spectrum to lower my monthly bill. I played a long to see what the scam was because my cable bill never goes down!

Red Flags:
Offering 2 years at half my current monthly amount.
Wanted 6 months payment up front to activate the new contract.
Said it was a promotion sponsored by Target, and I needed to pay with Target gift cards by 5pm tomorrow.

He had all my account info, so obviously they had hacked my online account with Spectrum. I have auto billing to my credit card. He made a $2 payment to activate the offer, so obviously he was in my account. I got a text verifying the payment, with the alleged number to call tomorrow for the billing department to pay with the target gift cards. He must have got my cell number from my account.

He spent time instructing me how to get the gift cards, and not to discuss the purpose with the clerk at the store, another red flag!

I went online into my account and started a chat with Spectrum, they confirmed there is no such program with Target, and it's a scam.

I changed my password, security code, and security question. I noticed an additional Gmail account had been added so I removed that.

Be careful out there, the online world is full of sneaky rat bast***s!

Any idea on how they hacked your Spectrum account? Did you have a reasonably strong password originally?

 

[davidvel]

That is a waste of time. They have a spoofer that uses and different number everytime. The biggest scam is cable TV itself. Why paying hundreds of dollars every month for the privilege of watching commercials. Just cut the cord and cancel. Cable TV will be dead in a few years anyway.

I think they might give you the privilege of watching more than commercials, or no commercials with a DVR.

 

[TolmiePeak]

Any idea on how they hacked your Spectrum account? Did you have a reasonably strong password originally?

They just probably downloaded the database containing all of the passwords from the cable company.

 

[tombanjo]

They did not "hack the OPs account" - they may not have any clue if the person is actually a spectrum user or not. Though it can be easily determined from an email address (@spectrum.com)

They are offering a discount on a cable subscription. I am sure that if a person said they did not have spectrum, they would be offered a special price to switch.

no passwords needed to call and offer this

 

[WaikikiFirst]

LOL. Thanks for reminding me of the correctness of my response to all salespeople:
"You need to simplify this or I'm OUTTA HERE in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ..."
Fringe-bennie, you end up with far fewer accounts scammers can hack into or even use to find you
ps: if your CATV bill never goes down it is because you never call to cancel. When I cut the cord about 15 yrs ago, before I finally said "No. I am just done here" they had offered to cut my monthly bill in half, back to where it had been 4 or 5 yrs before, which is when I had signed up with that MSO.

At least every 18 months, call your MSO and say "I will not pay more than I was paying 2 yrs ago. Period. Cut me back to that # or I am OUTTA HERE"

 

[pedro47]

To the OP, thanks for sharing this information about the Spectrum Cable Scam. .

 

[davidvel]

They did not "hack the OPs account" - they may not have any clue if the person is actually a spectrum user or not. Though it can be easily determined from an email address (@spectrum.com)

They are offering a discount on a cable subscription. I am sure that if a person said they did not have spectrum, they would be offered a special price to switch.

no passwords needed to call and offer this

Op said they logged into their account and even added an email. Whether this technically is a "hack" or not, the word seems appropriate.

 

[SmithOp]

They did not "hack the OPs account" - they may not have any clue if the person is actually a spectrum user or not. Though it can be easily determined from an email address (@spectrum.com)

They are offering a discount on a cable subscription. I am sure that if a person said they did not have spectrum, they would be offered a special price to switch.

no passwords needed to call and offer this

No, he was in my account because he initiated a $2 charge to my credit card that is set up for auto billing. There was a new Gmail account added also, which I removed. He knew my upcoming billing amount and the date. His first slip up was asking for my pin code on the account to verify it, I gave him the wrong number and he didn't catch it, so he was phishing for more info.

I have no idea how they got access, I did have a strong password. Spectrum does not use 2FA, probably need to add that...

Transcript of the message on my voicemail:

Dear customer this voicemail is to inform you that spectrum is removing the 40% discount offer on your monthly bill to reactivate this offer right now please call back on the number you see on your caller ID thank you

 

[PigsDad]

No, he was in my account because he initiated a $2 charge to my credit card that is set up for auto billing. There was a new Gmail account added also, which I removed. He knew my upcoming billing amount and the date. His first slip up was asking for my pin code on the account to verify it, I gave him the wrong number and he didn't catch it, so he was phishing for more info.

I have no idea how they got access, I did have a strong password. Spectrum does not use 2FA, probably need to add that...

Transcript of the message on my voicemail:

Dear customer this voicemail is to inform you that spectrum is removing the 40% discount offer on your monthly bill to reactivate this offer right now please call back on the number you see on your caller ID thank you

Just curious -- do you get you bill mailed to you? Could they have intercepted mail and gotten your monthly billing amount and date?

Kurt

 

[BJRSanDiego]

I googled it and read that Spectrum had a sensitive data breach in Dec 2023.

 

[GetawaysRus]

I googled it and read that Spectrum had a sensitive data breach in Dec 2023.

Another day, another breach. We were never notified. Spectrum is a cheap SOB. I guess they didn't want to pay for a free year of identity theft monitoring for affected customers. But a notice would have been nice.

 

[GT75]

I like this one better than the one I've gotten a few times quite recently. I keep getting emails supposedly from PayPal informing me about my purchase of (pick one: an iPhone, a multiyear subscription to McAfee or Norton antivirus). I'm a big spender. Those charges are typically quite hefty, enough I'm sure to motivate someone to call the included phone number.

This is the one which we are getting very often. I just delete the text message.

 

[SmithOp]

Just curious -- do you get you bill mailed to you? Could they have intercepted mail and gotten your monthly billing amount and date?

Kurt

No, all my bills are set up as electronic with auto pay to my credit card.

 

[SmithOp]

I googled it and read that Spectrum had a sensitive data breach in Dec 2023.

That's interesting because my 2 year new service discount is set to expire in September so I am expecting an increase otherwise I may not have even returned the call. The details of my account are probably out there on the dark web.

 

[dioxide45]

have no idea how they got access, I did have a strong password. Spectrum does not use 2FA, probably need to add tha

What some think is a strong password might not really be one. Then if you used the same password for other accounts it could be that other account that was compromised. They take that user ID and password and try it on multiple systems. Yahoo was hacked years ago with plain text passwords compromised. They then had Email and passwords that they could use across multiple websites and banks.

 

[davidvel]

Transcript of the message on my voicemail:

Dear customer this voicemail is to inform you that spectrum is removing the 40% discount offer on your monthly bill to reactivate this offer right now please call back on the number you see on your caller ID thank you

Just got the exact same voicemail. The number they called is a business line completely unassociated in any way with a Spectrum account.

 

[pedro47]

Just got the exact same voicemail. The number they called is a business line completely unassociated in any way with a Spectrum account.

Thanks for sharing this information.

 

[e.bram]

Switched from fios cable to spectrum streaming and pay half for same programming availability.