[Janelle Ward]

Scammers are nothing if not inventive – especially with this latest bid to part you and your money.

The usual approaches involve text messages, emails and phone calls, but this one uses a very old-fashioned means of communication – a letter.

Telstra customers are being warned to stay on the lookout for letters sent by scammers aimed at convincing you to hand over money.

Scamwatch, run by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), has issued a warning, but hopefully you will be able to see through the scam – for a number of reasons.

Scamwatch says: “Beware, scammers are using letters like this [above] 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.”

The letter features Telstra’s logo and claims to be from Telstra’s technical department in Melbourne.
It then states the recipient’s network has been hacked, and that Telstra is running a clean-up operation.

“As per the conversations we have (sent money) into your bank account which you have already taken for this operation,” the letter reads.

“Now you just have to hand over that sponsored money of Telstra to one of our Telstra agent (sic), you will get rest of the details from our investigating officer Adam Wilson.

“We are requesting you to cooperate with us in this operation for the next 24 hours.”

The letter requests recipient “not disclose” the issue to anyone as it’s a “secret mission” to catch the hackers.

Have you received one of these letters? Was it pretty obvious it was a scam?

[Miranda]

I’ve not received this letter but it’s very obviously not genuine. The logo looks copied and doesn’t normally appear in the middle. It also looks like a photocopy, not newly printed, is not personally addressed and there is no name or signature to close the letter. The format of the letter is very poor and amateurish, there are grammatical errors and upper case is used throughout, instead of a combination of upper and lower case, etc, etc.

[Couldabeen]

Anybody who takes any serious notice of this letter cannot be the brightest bulb in the chandelier.
Poor grammar and spelling that is more in keeping with someone who hasn’t completed Primary School or for whom English is not their first language.
Certainly not at a standard that we would normally expect from any commercial company or Government organisation.
Certainly if one received this very amateurish attempt at a scam, forwarding it directly to Scamwatch would be your first reaction.

[KSS]

The letter says “there are few hackers active on it” (your network). That being the case, no need to worry and no need to keep a ‘secret’ or hand over any money!

[Author]

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