Virgin Media Calling and Asking for Password

Receiving a phone call from Virgin Media

Last week sometime, I received a phone call from Virgin Media. The caller said he would like to talk to me regarding my account, which at first seemed fairly legit. I asked him what the problem was and to his response, I was shocked.

The reply was “Firstly Michael, I need to know your password”. After telling him that I’m not giving him my password as he rang me. He should know that he is talking to the correct person.

Personally, I felt like this could have easily been some fraudulent call. After him not giving up on this, despite me asking several times what it was actually regarding and him repeating… “I can’t tell you until you give me your password”. I said to him that you can send me a letter with what this is regarding and I hung up.

The problem continues

This wouldn’t have been a problem if I was the one who rung them up. But the fact he did this when calling ME, I was not going to tell him. I personally feel that this isn’t the best way to handle the call, and he should have asked me other questions like my address or say the 2nd and 5th characters of my password. If I were to have friends/family around, I wouldn’t tell him my password as it could be used on other websites like Facebook and Twitter, so it should be dealt in another way.

The terms even speak about not asking for your password (shown below). Surely this means they are going against their own terms on this.

If anyone has had the same, or similar experiences on this then please share your thoughts and what you did to deal with the situation.

They did in fact send me a letter, and it was to do with being behind on payments. Why they couldn’t even hint at this still baffles me, but I rang them up and had it all sorted.

Protecting your information

Any information sent to us is protected using robust security methods. The methods we use are industry-standard ensuring data is safeguarded whilst being sent over unprotected communications paths such as the internet. When it reaches us, we store it securely and only provide access to it by those authorised. Although we safeguard your personal information once received, Virgin Media cannot guarantee the safety of any personal information you transmit to us using online methods.

We will never ask you for your Virgin Media identification, authentication passwords or PIN numbers directly associated with your Virgin Media account in any unsolicited phone calls or unsolicited emails. In accordance with our Terms and Conditions, you are responsible for keeping your password and PIN secure and we very strongly recommend you do not disclose them to anyone (unless you wish to authorise them to access your account and potentially incur charges on your account).

— https://store.virginmedia.com/the-legal-stuff/privacy-policy.html