Yahoo Finance Aussie mum's warning after falling for Optus scam: 'I never get scammed'
A mum shocked herself by falling for a scam when someone called her and claimed she could be rewarded for being a loyal Optus customer.
Eliza Nixon took to TikTok earlier this month to alert others about the scam.
The woman from South Australia says she's not one to fall for scams, but this one got her.
"I never get scammed, I'm always on to everything. So I'm actually quite surprised that I fell for this," she said.
"So if I fell for it, I know that other people definitely could as well."
She received a call claiming to be from her "phone provider" earlier this month, saying she was being offered a 70 per cent discount off her bill for the next few months for being a loyal customer.
The scammer didn't ask Ms Nixon many questions, instead, she was just confirming details for them.
They were confirming information like her full name, date of birth, address and phone number — all information a phone provider would have.
Though, one question they asked her was whether her bill was paid or directly debited.
Given the information the scammer had, Ms Nixon said it all seemed more "legitimate", however, she still had an odd feeling about the call.
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"I don't know why I continued with the conversation," she admitted.
She was told "Optus" had all the information they needed to move forward with the discount, they were going to hang up and call Ms Nixon back.
In the meantime, she would be sent a one-time password and when they called back, all Ms Nixon had to do was repeat the one-time password.
When they called back, Ms Nixon gave them the one-time password and she was then told she would receive an email summing up what had been discussed over the phone.
How the Optus scam works
As soon as Ms Nixon got off the phone, she just knew something wasn't right. She then called Optus and they confirmed this was a scam.
Optus then helped Ms Nixon re-register her account through the Optus app. Fortunately she did not lose any money.
Ms Nixon suggested there could be a data leak somewhere, given whoever called her had a lot of information about her.
She then said while she was talking on the phone to them and confirming all this personal information, they were trying to log into her account.
Because someone else was trying to get into Ms Nixon's account, it was flagged, so the one-time password she confirmed on the phone was used to help them get in and change details.
"I've since heard stories of them using those account details to order iPhones and order all these things and then basically, they've got your details and they get them sent to another address," Ms Nixon said,
Since the scam call, Ms Nixon has gone in and changed her password and email linked to her account. She also changed the password to other accounts that are associated with that email.
She then urged other people to trust their intuition in similar situations.
"Always trust your gut, if something feels funny hang up, say you're gonna call them back, whatever it is, nothing's for free," she said.
"I honestly don't I don't know how I've fallen for it."
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