Electricity account hacking only noticed when service provider contacted the customer

A ROUSE Hill woman has told how hackers managed to scam power company Dodo into refunding her money into their bank account after they managed to change her private details on the account.

Sandra holds up a letter from her energy provider Dodo after her hacking. Pictures: David Swift

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IT WAS only when her energy provider sent her an email saying they had refunded money into her account following her request that a Rouse Hill woman realised someone or a gang had hacked into her account.

Sandra — she only wants to be identified by her first name — is now the second person Rouse Hill Times has written about in a week, whose mobile phone was hacked into and her ID stolen by criminals, costing her hundreds of dollars.

Since then, Sandra, like Eryn Ford — whose ID theft story was exclusively featured in our paper last week — has been forced to change her credit cards, passwords and more importantly, make her social accounts more secure.

In Sandra’s case, her electricity provider Dodo has told her they will return the money stolen from the account which has been set up to make regular payments for the power used.

She uses a system where regular payments are made based on estimates of what electricity usage will be rather than being faced with a large bill every quarter.

Dodo declined to comment about the hacking, saying in a statement: “Due to security purpose, we cannot disclose any account information with you ... it is our highest priority to protect our customer from hacking and all other fraudulent activities.”

Sandra said someone or a gang had hacked into her electricity account and easily changed her information “just to skim my account”.

Sandra has no idea how the hackers got into her account.

“I had an email from my electricity provider Dodo saying they had approved a refund of $254 in excess payments that I had requested, into my credit card,” Sandra told the Rouse Hill Times.

“As I hadn’t made such a request I contacted the energy provider.

“They advised that they had indeed refunded $254 into my Visa account.

“Now given I don't have a Visa it was rather worrying. They also wanted to confirm my identity.”

Sandra said that the scammers had changed the last digits in both her home phone and mobile phone that were on file with Dodo.

They had also replaced the bank account that was on file with their own so the money refunded would be paid to them.

Sandra said that Dodo has told her they are investigating the breech in a bid identify the identity of the thief.

She also checked with her bank to check that her accounts are secured.

“I have no idea how it happened and if not the email from Dodo, I would not have known about it at all,” Sandra said.

Sandra has also made a complaint to the ACCC about a company deducting $50 a month form her credit card for being part of a ‘VIP program’ she did not sign up for.

“It’s frightening how easy these things can happen as I had just been reading the Rouse Hill Times story on the ID theft which made me change details on my FB page.’

Sandra also warned people to be aware of online shopping as her credit card was charged $50 regularly without her knowing.

“On the same day that happened we discovered an Australian online store had subtlety been removing $50 from my credit card for a few months as a result of an * next to a dress my daughter had purchased.

“They have a VIP program you can sign up to legitimately but this * apparently gave them authority to make us VIP and I have referred it to ACCC.”