Scamwatch: targeted by fake customer support
Faye was Headline Money Consumer Money Journalist of 2023 and a Wincott Award finalist in 2025. She's been investigating scams for nearly a decade.
Dear Which?,
I’m a Sky customer, and I was struggling to resolve an issue with the company.
Looking for another way to contact Sky, I found a Facebook page called SkyUK Complaints, which at the time I believed to be an official page.
After posting on the page, I received a WhatsApp call from a person claiming to be from Sky customer services. They knew what I’d written in my post, even though it was still pending and had not yet been published.
This person claimed they couldn’t help until I had completed a ‘compensation form’, even though I insisted I didn’t want any compensation.
I downloaded the form, but it seemed to require a lot of personal information and was more relevant to a holiday compensation claim.
Now suspicious, I didn’t submit the form but began to fear that someone had control of my phone, as it became unresponsive.
I ended the call, restarted the phone, changed the password and contacted my bank. Do I have anything further to fear following this experience?
Jeffrey Allen, Dorset
Faye Lipson, Which? senior researcher, says:
You rightly reported the group and the WhatsApp number to Meta, the parent company of both Facebook and WhatsApp.
When you contacted us, the SkyUK Complaints group had already disappeared from Facebook, but we found another unofficial one with a similar name.
It also encouraged people to contact it via WhatsApp rather than Sky’s official customer service details.
We reported that group using Facebook's own in-app reporting tools. The next day, Meta said it wouldn’t remove it, but reversed its decision a few days later.
You didn’t fill in the bogus compensation form, but the scammers still have your number and the details you supplied in your Facebook post, so be very cautious of any unsolicited calls requesting payment or personal information – particularly if it claims to come from a trusted organisation.
Always independently verify such requests using trusted contact details before complying.
Although you have since replaced your phone, the National Cyber Security Centre has produced a guide on what to do if you think your phone has been hacked or infected with malware.
