Telstra 5G scam: Kathy Sundstrom explains latest scam sweeping the region

New technology means many things. New scams, unfortunately, is all part and parcel of the changes. Find out about the latest sophisticated scam sweeping the region here.

“Hello, this is Telstra and we are installing 5G in your area.”

What would you do if you received a call like this?

You’ve heard about 5G and you know it is coming so it is reasonable to expect Telstra to be calling you and advising of this, right?

Scammers love to manipulate a little bit of knowledge to their advantage.

They had a field day with the rollout of the national broadband network, regularly bamboozling people into giving remote access thinking it was related to their internet connectivity.

And now, it appears, they’re onto something new. They’re on the 5G gravy train.

I spoke to a Sunshine Coast woman this week who received this kind of phone call.

“He gave me his name, he gave me his Telstra ID and he said Telstra was upgrading from 4G to 5G in our area and I needed to get on my computer so they could remotely log in,” she said.

The pandemic has also provided the perfect ruse for scammers to claim they need remote access.

“They said they couldn’t send and technicians out because of the pandemic and would need to do it through my computer,” the woman explained.

So, she downloaded Teamviewer – a legitimate app for remote access – and she gave him permission to have access to her computer.

“He just sounded so genuine honestly,” she said.

The scammer was on her computer for five hours, more than enough time to go through her files.

He told her to turn off her mobile phone as this would interrupt the process, which also seemed reasonable.

“There is a lot of hindsight I can see now,” the woman said.

The scammer said he needed $4.99 and it had to go on the credit card used to pay Telstra and she provided this.

“He had an answer to everything of course,” the woman said.

The scammer was able to withdraw nearly $8000 from the woman’s account and also has a copy of her driver’s licence and passport which was stored on her computer.

Thankfully, she has been able to get nearly $5000 back as she contacted her bank as soon as the call disconnected. It is unlikely she will get more money returned.

The Sunshine Coast woman is one of many in the last fortnight he has been impacted by the “5G scam”. It highlights how quick scammers are to update their scripts to reflect current trends.

And it is an important reminder to not give someone who calls you out-of-the-blue, pretending to be from an official organisation, remote access to your devices.

Kathy Sundstrom is a former Sunshine Coast Daily journalist who now works at identity and cyber support service IDCARE.