02031035180

I want to clarify something here:
I do not work with or am not affiliated with anybody from Firstassist or the Halifax Bank of Scotland group but just want to give my two cents worth here.

I received a call at the start of October from a guy saying he was calling on behalf of the Halifax from a call centre in Cumbria. The guy was very polite and friendly and we had a conversation for about 20 minutes as my girlfriend has just given birth to our second child. The guy's girlfriend was apparently pregnant with their first baby too so I enjoyed giving out a bit of advice as a parent too and we had a good long discussion.
The guy (whose name I unfortunately can't remember) was really cool and he told me about the accident plan. With having two kids myself I figured it might be a good idea to have something like this for myself.
I took the plan in good faith but have to say I was a bit dubious when it came to giving out my card details (sort code and account number) but was reassured that a direct debit or money being paid in were the only things that could be done with my details and I handed them over. I have to say I was a little worried for a few days until my paperwork arrived. It was definitely genuine and had Halifax and Firstassist on it so they were obviously partnering together.
Three weeks later my partner was at work and she dropped a table on her foot, breaking her middle toe. I figured this was time for me to make a claim on her behalf and so I advised her to make sure she got a note from the doctor at the hospital.
I got more alarmed when I found out the doctor charged £10 for a note of this type and had all sort of thoughts about how much this was going to cost me until I got my money so I sent it off with my hopes pretty low.
Two weeks later the money was paid into my account (The full £250 as stated in the paperwork too so no tax or anything knocked off!).

From my personal experience it is definitely a genuine company and these guys certainly are on the level. They definitely don't deserve the harsh words and lies that people like Frank are saying. Stereotyping people as "drug dealers" and the like is totally unfair as these are people with families selling the product to people with families...and people like me that have genuinely benefitted from the service.

Their jobs must be hard enough at the moment with all the problems with peoples details going missing in the post through the government so please just give them a chance. As a customer that has set up an account and received a payout, I can tell you that most people here don't seem to know what they're talking about.

just call ofcom and report these people !!! so they can't take advantage of others!!!

Have recieved 4 calls from this number in a 2 hr period today, very annoying.
Yesterday I answered and they asked to speak to the lady of the house so I hung up. Insteresting comments on this site, and if it is someone trying to get bank details, then also be wary of emails from the 'halifax' as I had one recently asking to confirm my online banking login details! Hence it was a hoax email and was deleted.

Just read some of the many recent comments, from people saying they work at this centre and it really is genuine... BAH! Halifax customer services centre confirmed to me that this is a scam... they had specific memos sent out to the staff regarding it identifying the number. now if it wasn't a scam why would Halifax have specifically sent out memos to all their staff saying it is?

This leads me to be very concerned at the comments made here by people saying it is definately not a scam.

THIS IS 100% SCAM.

The police who I spoke to have contacted Virgin and BT to trace the real number, as the 02031035180 number is just a smoke screen - the calls get routed/diverted through that number so that it shows as their caller id. My calls have now stopped thanks to my telphone provider blocking this number.

I've had 3 calls off this number today alone. I picked up on the 3rd call after reading this earlier in the day all ready to give the guy some grief.

I could hear a busy office in the background, and the chap introduced himself as Mark.

Straight away, he mentioned he was calling from the Halifax, and went straight in to asking me my year of birth.

I said, "No mate, I've read today this is a hoax call so I'm not going to give you anything", to which he gave a nervous laugh and said it wasn't.

He protested saying he had my details in front of him saying he just wanted to confirm them. I said "If you have my details in front of you, you can read them out to me" to which he answered that I may not be the person I claimed to be.

I just said "Well we're in deadlock then" to which he said thanks and hung up.

If this were really the Halifax, I'm sure they would introduce themselves and explain why they were calling at all, before even asking any security questions, and my date of birth certainly wouldn't be one. More likely to be my mother's maiden name instead.

When you call the number back, you get a standard "You were called by..." message which can lead people to be mislead.

Surely there must be a law against this kind of thing! Thanks to this website for highlighting the problem and all the previous posters for cluing me in on this.

I'd advise anyone to tell anyone claiming to be from your bank or mortgage provider, to request they write to you instead about an issue, and challenge them as to whether or not they have your address details (obviously not giving them out either).

I feel for anyone who falls victim to this

as the convosation you have beein haveing with my colliges adam and p.w frank if we became trafic wardens you would probelby fine some thng to moan about with that if u want the calls to stop answer and tell 1 of my colliges u are not intested before giveing date of birth or post code that will then go down as a refused call and u will no longer be contacted. stop wateing your lives and time wrighting stupid messages getting other people hyped up for no reason

http://www.halifax.co.uk/insurance/personalaccidentplan.asp  - there you go people check it out for yourselves... You'll find all the details about FirstAssist and what they do for the Halifax as well as the FSA, Ofcom and Companies House registration details...if you like you could contact companies house they'll be able to confirm these details or alternatively you could all just get a life....

are you lot f**king stupid? the calls get through TPS cos its on behalf of your bank. They have your details cos its on behalf of the bank and it is the law under the data protection act that they ask a security question before setting something up on your account, not very secure if anyone who answers your phone can set up direct debits on your behalf is it! morons!

well said steve lol

Frank - you state you worked for a company scamming people for bank details then come on here accusing people of doing the same.  Some people ACTUALLY work for REAL companies.  who the f**k are you to comment? and as for updating details as you were this forum is about a number trying to sell accident insurance so its totally unrelated.  Go get a real job fuckwit.

I just spoke to customer complaints at BoS. She said they do have a genuine partnership with a company called First Assist but they have been getting calls recently about people receiving calls from this number. She said that they are now investigating this number as they have a lot of complaints. They are checking to see that the number is legit and they are investigating the content of these calls. She said that the reason they are doubting the authenticity is because the staff are hanging up as soon as people ask them for an explanation.

She said their investigations are ongoing. She took me off the marketing list for phone calls, etc so that now if I do receive any calls from someone saying they the halifax/bos then I can be sure they are not genuine. The number I called at BoS to get this sorted out was : 08457 25 35 19.

Perhaps First Assist are victims of scammers or perhaps some of their staff are just not very well trained or are simply disgruntled (i could understand why!!)

If it was real there would be a way to contact them...

this is an out bound call campain go on to the halifax web site and click on insurance and personl assicant plan and that will take you to first assist web site have a look for your self

all you need to do is logon to the halifax website and go to insurance then goto personel accident cover and then you are redirected to a first assist web page this will show all you people that think this is a scam that you are wrong the telephone number for first assist is found on the web page if you want to phone them go ahead you will see that it is a ligit company and they work on behalf of the halifax bank to provide this cover. i hope this helps anybody that is worried about getting phone calls from first assist

so why doesn't the caller provide a name and number to phone back on? Because it is a scam....

why not take some advice and go on the website and call the number? or can you not handle being wrong? everything you need to put your mind at rest is being given to you, and as you are clearly on the web you are clearly very lazy or incredibly scared of being proved wrong? why not do it?

like i said it is an out bound call campain just go on to the  web sight and take a look 4 u sel and stop beeing so perthtic we have answerd this question a million times

In response to Andy:
We do not claim to be calling FROM the Halifax, only on BEHALF of them.
The only access to your details we have is to your full name, DOB and full address and postcode. Therefore we couldn't ask for your mothers maiden name. This is only for your own security so we don't have access to anything else.

By the way, thanks to Jamie. That was myself that sold you it and i'm glad to see you've benefitted. I just wish there were more people that had taken the plan and could reassure others.
We had a little boy on the 10th October Jamie and he's absolutely gorgeous.
Thanks for the kind words mate.

For God's sake, all of you, this is just getting to be a child's, playground slanging match, grow up all of you!!!  Juvenile.  Firstly I would like to say to the general public, I am an employee of First Assist.  I could tell you it's a genuine company, I could tell you it isn't, either way nobody would believe me so I am not going to waste my breath.  I would just like to say that we do have a voice procedure to follow and we have to be compliant with company guidelines.  Nowhere, in these guidelines are we allowed to say that it has something to do with your account!  So if that is what the agent is saying, that is against the rules and it may well be a scam but I can assure you that it is not coming from this office.

Next; saying that the agent gave a "nervous laugh".  Well that adds to the mystery and makes the story more interesting.  Very creative.

Can I just say to the Lady that picked up on one of my colleagues grammar.  We work in sales sweetheart, whether the agent is illiterate or not, it is irrelevant to the job.  As long as you can talk.  No need to get personal.

One more thing to the general public.  Unless you work for Halifax Plc or any admin company that works on their behalf, you wont know how they operate or what "data protection" rules and regulations they need to follow.  So stop assuming what they "SHOULD" be saying and maybe do a bit of research.

SECONDLY: THIS IS TO MY FELLOW COLLEAGUES:

Don't even give these sceptics the time of day.  They are wasting your time, stop wasting your time on here when you should be doing your job and having relations with good, decent people.  These are people who are obviously people sat at home, alone and very bored, they have nothing else better to do.

Now everyone grow up PLEASE - That's all I have to say on this matter.  Take from it what you will.

thanks andy nice to see people are on our side and do listen. Like i said before all you need to do is go onto the web and see and all these people saying we are a scam i expect a full apology posted onto this site or is this just beyond you people