ISP Freedom Fibre Warns of Fake UK FTTP Broadband Engineers
Network builder Freedom Fibre (FF), which is supported by UK ISP partner TalkTalk (here) and is busy deploying a new 10Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across semi-rural parts of North England, has warned residents in some of their network patches to be on the lookout for individuals posing as FF engineers.
The operator told customers that they’ve had “reports of individuals posing as Freedom Fibre engineers” while visiting homes and businesses in the Newton Le Willows and Culcheth areas. The seemingly fake engineers typically ask to check for faults or to perform an installation (we assume with the intent of gaining access to property and thus your valuables or personal / financial data etc.).
“If one of our Engineers needs to visit you for any reason, we’ll always call or text ahead, and they’ll be wearing Freedom Fibre branded clothing, lanyard and arrive in a branded vehicle. Our Engineers will never ask for any personal or bank details from you, so please be vigilant,” said a spokesperson for Freedom Fibre. Anybody wanting to check if an engineer is genuine has been advised to contact the ISP directly (here).
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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It a bit of a problem everywhere where a well know business “fake” employees, doing deceitful ruse. Utilities are some of worst effected by this (Gas/Electric/Water/Telcoms). It works so well because people trust them, there doing something you need (not just want) and they understandable would rather let experts deal with it.
It also issue where people are “fake” police or something like TV licence.
No need to worry about checking the credentials of TV Licensing “inspectors” (actually salesmen), unless they have a warrant from a court. They have no right to demand you answer questions, or sign anything, or to be let into your home. Just politely say “No thank you” and close the door.
Could you tell a real warrant from a fake one?
It is very rare for TV Licensing salespeople to be armed with a warrant.
Could just be trying their luck, similar to those scam emails where they say ‘you are a customer of x large brand’, even though you have nothing to do with them.
Some people may also have others in the house who handle utilities, so they may just think they’re doing something.
The publicity around the end of copper services will be a golden opportunity for this kind of con artist. How would the average person know that they either do or don’t have to “order” something in order to trigger a visit from an engineer?
If this looks like it’s going to trigger a lot of fraud then Ofcom need to co-ordinate publicity about what the real process is for changeovers.
“across semi-rural parts of North England”
Says it all.