Fake Telstra Call & Cyber Scam
This Article is from Telstra, we recommend you to read it.
Telephone based scam callers will frequently claim to be from well-known organisations such as Telstra, the Government, or other brands or organisations you are likely to be familiar with.
These scam callers will often try to convince you of the urgent need to follow their instructions. Sometimes they will try to convince you to give them access to your computer remotely, such as by pretending to be a Telstra service representative. Often they will apply inappropriate pressure, including threats and potentially inappropriate language, as part of their scam.
What to look out for:
- Calls from people impersonating representatives from well-known organisations, such as the Government, or familiar brands and companies.
- Calls seeking financial details (such as your credit card or banking details) in order to process a refund or other “overpayment”.
- Call quality may be poor, and the caller may be difficult to understand.
- Callers which attempt to apply a lot of pressure, urging you to take immediate action to address a problem.
- Calls offering to place a number on the Do Not Call Register for a fee. This is a free service, for more information visit: https://www.donotcall.gov.au
- Callers advising that your computer has a virus or is attacking others.
- Note: We won’t call you for a service or technical matter unless you contact us first.
- To learn about what Telstra will contact you for, refer to our verification page
Example of live phone scams:
- Calls imitating the Australian Federal Police that require your assistance to help them track down criminals and partake in criminal investigations. In these calls you’re often asked to transfer money abroad using international wire transfer services.
- Calls asking for bills to be paid via pre-paid gift cards – such as iTunes and Westfield – on behalf of a credit agency representing Telstra or the ATO (Australian Taxation Office).
- Calls imitating “support desk” staff looking to access your computer by pretending to know your “CLSID”. This is a non-unique identifier that scammers try to trick you into thinking is something only a legitimate support person would know.
What to do next:
- If you’re not sure that the person on the other end of the phone actually who they say they are, hang up and call the organisation by using their official published contact details.
- If the caller is claiming to represent Telstra, do not share your personal information, credit card or online account details over the phone unless you made the call and the phone number you called came from a trusted source, such as contact details obtained from your physical bill or https://www.telstra.com.au/contact-us
- Don’t respond to missed calls that come from numbers you don’t recognise. Calling back may result in instant charges in excess of $20.
- Be careful of phone numbers beginning with “190”. These are charged at a premium rate and can be expensive.
- Be careful of being tricked into calling expensive international phone numbers.
- If you think something’s not quite right, just hang up. If it’s an SMS, delete it and don’t reply.
- Report it. Submit a Report Misuse of Service form and include as much detail about the call and caller as you can remember. Our Cyber Security team will investigate the report and may be in touch if they have additional questions.
