Warning over Telstra scam targeting Australians

People are being asked to warn their family, friends and neighbours about a new scam that has emerged in Australia.

Scammers aren’t just using sophisticated technology to trick people into losing their money but have turned to an old school way to cheat them.

Scamwatch has warned people of a new scam doing the rounds and it could end up in your letterbox.

A letter is being circulated that pretends to be from Telstra, which attempts to convince people to withdraw money and hand it over in person to someone who will collect it from their home.

The government organisation is requesting people to “warn your friends, family and neighbours” about the scam.

BEWARE, scammers are using letters like this to convince people to withdraw money and hand it over in person to someone that will collect it from their home. This is a scam. Warn your friends, family, and neighbours. pic.twitter.com/ur4ZfOFENo

— Scamwatch_gov_au (@Scamwatch_gov) February 6, 2023

However, the letter however is riddled with spelling and grammar errors.

“This is to inform you that we have examined your network and identified (a) few hackers active in it,” the letter reads

“We have to run an operation to get rid of them and we have already notify (sic) you about that.”

It states that money has been put into the customer’s account as part of the operation.

“Now you have to hand over that sponsored money of Telstra to one of our Telstra agent.

“You will get the rest of our details from our investigating officer.

“We are requesting you to co-operate with us in this operation to trace these hackers for the next 24 hours.”

A dodgy scam letter is circulating pretending to be from Telstra. Picture: Supplied

The scam letter asks people not to disclose the letter to anyone “as it is a secret mission to catch the hackers”.

Australians lost more than $474 million in scams last year, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, with investment scams topping the list with $320 million taken from Aussies.

Dating and romance were the second biggest scams in Australia with about $32 million lost, while false billing, identity theft, pyramid schemes and online shopping scams also caught people out.

Telstra said it had been blocking between 10 million and 15 million scam calls to customers monthly last year and had also blocked 225 million scam SMS to customers.

It also revealed it had blocked tens of thousands of malicious domains by criminals monthly between January to June 2022 and was blocking 332 million incoming scam and unwanted emails every month, the equivalent of blocking 7,600 emails every minute.

A Telstra spokesman said to always check the spelling and grammar in the communications as this will often be a dead giveaway of a scam or highlight that the communication is not from the legitimate provider.

“If you feel you are being pressured on a call or in communications to share personal identification or banking / financial information, end the call and call the represented organisation on their official number,” they added.

“Be sceptical – if it sounds too good to be true, it more than likely is and never click on links in unsolicited messages.”

Originally published as Warning over Telstra scam targeting Australians