According to this email, which purports to be from telecommunications company Virgin Media, your last payment was declined.
Supposedly, the company’s payment processor has detected invalid billing information associated with your account. It warns that your service is scheduled for automatic disconnection on a specified date a few days hence.
The message instructs you to click a link to update your billing information and avoid the impending restriction.
However, Virgin Media did not send the email and the claim that your service is about to be disconnected is untrue.
In fact, the email is a phishing scam designed to steal your personal and financial information.
Clicking the link opens a fraudulent website that asks you to supply your name and contact details as well as your credit card numbers and other sensitive identifying information.
Criminals can collect the information you supply and use it to commit credit card fraud and identity theft.
Similar scams have targetted Virgin Media customers for several years. The company has warned customers about this scam via a March 2019 post on its community pages. The Virgin Media help website also includes information about phishing scams and how to report them.
A screenshot of the scam email:
Importance Notice
After considerable thought and with an ache in my heart, I have decided that the time has come to close down the Hoax-Slayer website.These days, the site does not generate enough revenue to cover expenses, and I do not have the financial resources to sustain it going forward.
Moreover, I now work long hours in a full-time and physically taxing job, so maintaining and managing the website and publishing new material has become difficult for me.
And finally, after 18 years of writing about scams and hoaxes, I feel that it is time for me to take my fingers off the keyboard and focus on other projects and pastimes.
When I first started Hoax-Slayer, I never dreamed that I would still be working on the project all these years later or that it would become such an important part of my life. It's been a fantastic and engaging experience and one that I will always treasure.
I hope that my work over the years has helped to make the Internet a little safer and thwarted the activities of at least a few scammers and malicious pranksters.
A Big Thank You
I would also like to thank all of those wonderful people who have supported the project by sharing information from the site, contributing examples of scams and hoaxes, offering suggestions, donating funds, or helping behind the scenes.I would especially like to thank David White for his tireless contribution to the Hoax-Slayer Facebook Page over many years. David's support has been invaluable, and I can not thank him enough.
Closing Date
Hoax-Slayer will still be around for a few weeks while I wind things down. The site will go offline on May 31, 2021. While I will not be publishing any new posts, you can still access existing material on the site until the date of closure.Thank you, one and all!
Brett Christensen,
Hoax-Slayer
