The 8 words that saved woman from scam

Daily Telegraph: A woman had given her trust to a man she thought was a Westpac employee before an eight-word phrase saved her from disaster.

Chantel, from Victoria, received what appeared to be a legitimate text message from Medicare informing her she was a close contact with an Omicron case and needed to order a test.

“Medicare: You have been in close contact with someone who has contracted Omicron. You must order a free PCR test kit at:” the text, which included a link to a fake Medicare website, read.

Services Australia last week warned Aussies against the potentially dangerous text and told recipients to delete it from their phone immediately.

After clicking the link, Chantel was given the option to pay $1.49 for a test kit to be delivered to her door.

At the time, she was experiencing “all the Covid symptoms and so I wasn’t really thinking clearly”, she told 7 News, so proceeded with trying to purchase the kit.

Shortly after sending payment, Chantel’s phone began receiving calls.

“The phone rang twice, one straight after the other, so I thought it must be really important,” she told the publication.

The person on the other line was a British man who “spoke quite well” and told her she had been stung by a common scam that Westpac bank was going to protect her from.

The man posing as a Westpac employee told her scammers were trying to take $1000 from her account before the bank intercepted the transaction.

After raising her suspicions with the man that he could be a scammer, she was told to Google the number so she could see it belonged to the bank.

“Sure enough, it came up that it was under Westpac,” she said.

Having secured her trust, the man then told Chantel she would receive a text containing a verification code she would need.

“The text came up straight away but I was still a bit unsure, so he asked whether I had a landline so I could have called the bank to confirm,” she said.

When the woman said she would call her bank, the man hung up. Picture: iStock

Her next move was what saved her from catastrophe.

“So I told him, ‘I’ll hang up and call the bank now,’” she said.

“That’s when I heard a clunk and he’d gone.”

Him ending the call was all she needed for confirmation he was a hacker.

Chantel was left shaken by the experience and has a new appreciation for how easily people can be fooled into giving away their savings.

Westpac said it would never use verification codes when taking payments.

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