Sound advice Gisele, merci!
Anna
Anna Saxon
+61 4 3907 0943
On 17 Feb 2017, at 3:34 pm, Gisele Mesnage <giselemesnage@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello all,
I think that all of you will be pretty aware and savvy when it comes to scams
that come by email, phone, SMS, etc.
And usually I can detect a scam straight away.
But this afternoon I received a phone call that was a reality check for being
extra vigilant, and thought I would share what happened with you as anyone of
you could be similarly targeted.
The phone rang and when I picked up an automatic voice announced the call was
from the Department of Human Services, and to press 1 for further prompts I did.
The automated voice then announced that the Department of Human Services had
sent me several letters to which I had not responded, and as a consequence, my
file had been transferred to a special bureau in Canberra for review. The voice
then instructed me to call a phone number and a code I needed to quote for
reference. That is when the little voice in me thought, "suss".
I have a myGov account and would have received any legit letters via that
account, plus email notifications, so no need to worry about print letters
going astray etc.
So I did not follow the instructions and I tried to call the normal
Centrelink DSP line 13 27 17. After a very long wait an no answer, I tried the
AFP, who transferred me to Scam Watch, who confirmed it was definitely a
scam. You can read about the scam here:
https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/news/spike-in-centrelink-scams
The Department of Human Services also has information about other current scams
at:
https://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/scams
Given the current Centrelink data matching and debt collection activities that
have received coverage in the news and on social media, it is not surprising
that scammers have tried to cash in on the situation. The use of new means of
communication is not that unusualthese days, so the automated phone call was
not in itself that odd.It sounds very authentic, unlike those calls that
obviously come from a call centre nowhere in Australia, purporting to be from
ATO, etc.
I Hope this post helps others not to waste 2 hours trying to sort out if they
need to worry about such calls.So the advice from Scam Watch and the Department
of Human Services is, if you get such an automated phone call from a government
agency, hang up.
Cheers,
Gisele
Gisele Mesnage
email: giselemesnage@xxxxxxxxxxx
phone: 02 9799 5388
