[kenrconn]

High tech phishing scam​

I received a call from “Visa/Mastercard protection department”. (Not even sure if they share such a facility). I was told that they had detected an attempt to illegally procure funds from my credit card. I asked which bank was the credit card from and was told, hesitantly, “Commonwealth Bank”. As I do not bank with the Commonwealth I pretended to be surprised by that and the caller quickly changed it to NAB. All I replied with was “Oh ok”. Not letting him know that I don’t bank with NAB either. He told me that the department had stopped a payment being made but could I check with my bank if the transaction had been stopped properly. I told him that I could and would immediately get onto my internet banking on my PC. I pretended to access the account and told him that it looked ok to me. I was then asked to provide, “for verification purposes”, the top line of the page I was accessing. (The line that began with HTTPS). I AM very computer literate and know that this is the URL that shows the route for the computer to access the banking details. He asked for the string of numbers after HTTPS. I told him that there weren’t any numbers. He insisted that they were there and while pretending to not understand what he wanted I strung him along for a while. He got very fed up and abusive and eventually hung up on me. My theory is that while I am taking his time up he is not scamming anyone else and not earning anything for his SCAM boss. It worries me that anyone who is not so clever with scammers and their means might have given the detail he asked for thus, possibly, enabling him to follow the URL route into someone’s else’s account. I didn’t make his day but it made mine!!

 

[Sethia Soliman]

High tech phishing scam​

I received a call from “Visa/Mastercard protection department”. (Not even sure if they share such a facility). I was told that they had detected an attempt to illegally procure funds from my credit card. I asked which bank was the credit card from and was told, hesitantly, “Commonwealth Bank”. As I do not bank with the Commonwealth I pretended to be surprised by that and the caller quickly changed it to NAB. All I replied with was “Oh ok”. Not letting him know that I don’t bank with NAB either. He told me that the department had stopped a payment being made but could I check with my bank if the transaction had been stopped properly. I told him that I could and would immediately get onto my internet banking on my PC. I pretended to access the account and told him that it looked ok to me. I was then asked to provide, “for verification purposes”, the top line of the page I was accessing. (The line that began with HTTPS). I AM very computer literate and know that this is the URL that shows the route for the computer to access the banking details. He asked for the string of numbers after HTTPS. I told him that there weren’t any numbers. He insisted that they were there and while pretending to not understand what he wanted I strung him along for a while. He got very fed up and abusive and eventually hung up on me. My theory is that while I am taking his time up he is not scamming anyone else and not earning anything for his SCAM boss. It worries me that anyone who is not so clever with scammers and their means might have given the detail he asked for thus, possibly, enabling him to follow the URL route into someone’s else’s account. I didn’t make his day but it made mine!!

Wow, you certainly caught him in a lie! Please still be careful about picking up these calls though... Oh, and thank you for sharing this story with us. I can't emphasise how grateful we are that you may have saved a potential victim from falling for this!