Scam Phone Calls

Telephone-based scam callers often claim to be from well-known organisations such as Telstra, the Government, or other brands or organisations you’re likely to have heard of.

These scam callers will often try to convince you of the urgent need to follow their instructions. Sometimes they will try to convince you to give them access to your computer remotely, such as when pretending to be a Telstra employee. Often, they will apply inappropriate pressure, including threats and potentially inappropriate language, as part of their scam.

• Calls from people impersonating employees from well-known organisations, such as the Government, or familiar brands and companies.
• Calls seeking financial details, such as your credit card or banking details, in order to process a refund or other ‘overpayment’.
• Call quality may be poor, and the caller may be difficult to understand.
• Callers which attempt to apply a lot of pressure, urging you to take immediate action to address a problem.
• Calls offering to place a number on the Do Not Call Register for a fee. This is a free service.
• Callers advising that your computer has a virus or is attacking others.
• Please note, we won’t call you for a service or technical matter unless you contact us first. To find out what Telstra will contact you for, refer to our verification page.

• Calls imitating the Australian Federal Police that require your assistance to help them track down criminals and partake in criminal investigations. In these calls you’re often asked to transfer money overseas using international money transfer services.
• Calls asking for bills to be paid via prepaid gift cards – such as iTunes and Westfield – on behalf of a credit agency representing Telstra or the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
• Calls imitating support desk staff looking to access your computer by pretending to know your CLSID. This is a non-unique identifier which scammers try to pass off as something only a legitimate support person would know.
• Calls asking you to provide the security ‘one-time-code’ that you received via SMS. Telstra will never call and ask you for this security code. The only time you may be asked to verify your ‘one-time-code’ is if you’ve Messaged Us in My Telstra, or if you’ve called us on 13 22 00.