Mum-of-four issues urgent warning about Optus phone bill scam

A young mum has issued an urgent warning after scammers pretended to be an Optus employee to offer her a discount, before using her account to purchase smartphones.

Mother-of-four Eliza Nixon, who lives in South Australia, took to TikTok to talk about the sneaky phone call she’d had with a ‘telecommunications expert’ who already knew her full name, age, phone number and address. 

‘I never get scammed. I’m actually quite surprised that I fell for this… so if I fell for it I know that other people definitely could as well,’ the 32-year-old said as the ‘disclaimer’ on her video.

Mother-of-four Eliza Nixon, who lives in South Australia, took to TikTok to talk about the sneaky phone call she’d had with a ‘telecommunications expert’ who already knew her full name, age, phone number and address

She was unsurprised by the call at first because Eliza had only spoken to her phone provider days earlier to renegotiate her plan, so it didn’t seem like the follow-up was out of the ordinary. 

The fraudster offered her 70 per cent off her bill for the next three months for being a loyal customer with Optus.

‘But the thing is they didn’t ask me to provide any of my details. Instead, they confirmed a lot of details with me like, “Confirming this is your first and last name, address, phone number and date of birth”,’ she said.

‘The scammers already had all my details and the only information I gave them was the “one-time password” they said they were sending to me – and they asked me to repeat to them.’

Eliza felt like their inside knowledge of her key details made the call seem ‘legitimate’ but she still had an ‘off feeling’ throughout the call.

‘They said, “We’ve got everything to set up this discount for you… In the meantime, we’re going to send you your one-time password and you just need to repeat the password back to us and we can confirm that you are who you say you are”‘,’ she said.

Eliza felt like their inside knowledge of her key details made the call seem ‘legitimate’ but she still had an ‘off feeling’ throughout the call

‘So I did that, I gave them the password. They said, “Yep, that’s all good, you’ll get an email confirmation and the discount will start in the next month.”‘

After the phone call Eliza rang Optus to ask them whether they had just spoken to her, but sadly they confirmed it hadn’t been one of their employees on the phone.

They helped her re-register her account and change her password so the scammers couldn’t get any further access.

‘In the background, the scammers are the ones attempting to hack into your account and, by default, set off the verification code which they were clever enough to warn me was coming and obtain from me,’ Eliza said.

‘As soon as the conversation ended, I felt suspicious and attempted to log into my Optus account but the password was not working.’

Since learning of the scam Eliza had heard of scammers ordering iPhones and tablets through accounts they have hacked and sending them to a different address with the bill being charged to the customer’s name – leaving them thousands of dollars in debt.

Since learning of the scam Eliza had heard of scammers ordering iPhones and tablets through accounts they have hacked and sending them to a different address with the bill being charged to the customer’s name

Eliza’s TikTok followers were quick to offer their sympathies after learning about the scam.

‘The first red flag should have been that they were offering discounts for loyalty… that never happens! No one gets rewarded for loyalty these days,’ one woman wrote.

‘Confirming is a bad sign, the company/organisation needs to authenticate you before giving out any information, otherwise it is a breach of privacy,’ said another.

A third added: ‘I always tell them if it’s legit I’ll call them back and continue it that way. They always hang up on me or fly abuse my way’.