Last week, I had a phonecall from a woman claiming to be from Vodafone, wanting to give me a “half price discount for the next six month”.
The number came from one of those (02) 5xxx xxxx numbers, which was the first red flag, but instead of hanging up, I answered. I said nothing and waited for them to speak, and after several seconds, they did – another red flag.
The lady then spoke and said she was from Vodafone, offering loyal customers a half price deal for six months. I have a Vodafone account, and actually had two, but ported one to Amaysim to save money, so I thought maybe this was Vodafone’s way of wanting to make sure I didn’t cancel my other account, too.
The lady – who sounded like she was in a call centre somewhere on the sub-continent – was telling me she had sent a log-in link to my Vodafone account, and that she had sent it twice, but as she was calling me on my Telstra phone, it’s no surprise an SMS message wasn’t coming through – another red flag that I’d ignored, even though my spidey-senses were tingling.
I was telling the lady it all sounded like she was a scammer, but of course, she was insisting she really was from Vodafone and wanted to activate a six month half price offer, and all I had to do was to input a six digit code into the Vodafone app.
Even though alarm bells were ringing, for some reason I thought she was sending the log-in details to the wrong Vodafone account, so for some reason I gave her the number to the phone that actually still was with Vodafone, and the message came through – I was able to log into my Vodafone app on that phone.
I had been protesting that it all seemed a bit strange and that she must be a scammer, but for some reason I still gave her my 4 digit pin, which then enabled her to send me another message with a six digit number, which she wanted as this would “activate the half price deal”.
During the chat, she was “verifying” herself to me with details of my phone numbers, but of course she had this – she called me, and she was trying to scam me.
What finally snapped me wide away was the fact the six digit code that came through to my SMS also said: “Vodafone will never ask for this code. Here’s the code you need to continue: XXXXXX”.
It was at this point that I said hey, it says “Vodafone will never ask for this code” – I told her that and said “I’m going to call Vodafone direct” and that I was going to hang up. She tried in vain to explain that she was legit, and that somehow she had established that, but the red flags and alarm bells were too loud to ignore, so I hung up, and thank goodness I did!
She never called back. I immediately called Vodafone tech support and asked to change my four digit pin – and to ask whether the deal was a real offer.
I was told NO – and that it definitely was a SCAM. Scammers out there have LOTS of information about you from various leaks, and they’re not afraid to try and use it.
I was told by the Vodafone person I called via the official support line that the scammers will order products under your account, and if they can’t get those products back, that I would have been liable for this.
Because I hadn’t given over the six digit code, no orders were made. My pin was changed, and my account was safe, but obviously, these scammers are actively calling numbers across Australia in an attempt to bamboozle people into giving up codes sent to their phones, which then give scammers access to your account.
If someone is calling you, offering you some kind of deal, it’s 99.99999999999% likely to be a scam, even if it doesn’t sound too good to be true.
If you do get a call, and you think it might be real, call the company or organisation back on the number listed on their public website. Never click on a link from an SMS message, or call a number listed in a message or email – always go to the source.
And remember – scammers will try every trick in the book. I’m amazed I nearly got scammed, and I’m certainly wide awake now. I almost always just tell cold callers that I’m simply not interested in their energy or whatever deal it is, and then block their numbers.
I also get those pesky calls where people ring, and then within a microsecond of you answering, they hang up. They’re just testing to see if your number is active, and although I block these numbers, they’ll just call from another.
So please, be vigilant. For scammers, it’s simply a numbers game, and one day, any of us could be the weakest link, and get scammed.
It almost happened to me, but thankfully it didn’t. Please don’t let it happen to you!