Vodafone Phone Scam | Sarah Megginson

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sarah Meganson Money Expert, it find a good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good morning now.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Your social media is really good to follow. You have
changed everything to money Margarita, and it's basically all money now.
And I saw one come up about a scam for
voter Phone, and I thought, oh, we need to hear
this because a lot of people are on voter phone
and if you questioned it for a bit, then other
people would too.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
What is it one?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
And the thing about phone scams is if they get
access to your phone number, it means they can get
access to so much else because they can. If they've
got your data, they can log into your banking and
they can change your ID in various platforms. I know
someone personally who's license got swiped. They use that to
get his phone and they completely took over his ID
and he spent a year trying to get out of

(00:47):
all the debts that they racked up in his name.
So your phone is really really important to try and
keep it safe. And what happened with this scam is
they called pretending to be Votaphone saying Hi, we're calling
you about a promotion. We want to help you save
you and your bill, say forty percent off your bill. Now,
these kinds of calls from Votaphone come legitimately all the time.
They're always trying to upsell you from a call center,

(01:08):
So at first I thought it was a legit. But
the first clue that it wasn't was when she said,
we want to save you forty percent. I thought, there's
no way that Votaphone's calling me out of the blue
to give me a forty percent discount, but I kept
going just in case, ever hopeful, and then she said, so,
all we need to do to get started is for me
to access your file. I just need your pin, your
Votaphone pin, and straight away I was like, this is ridiculous.

(01:30):
I'm not giving you my pin, and I know from
dealing with Votaphone in the past they will ask you
to put your pin into the keypad or they will
send you a one time code. But they will only
ever do that if you've initiated the call. No one
will ever call you and ask for a pin, a password,
or a code. They will only do that if you've
called then yourself and you're trying to do something like

(01:52):
change your number, change your billing, or make some sort
of inquiry on your file. That's when a pin code
might come into it, but it should be a massive
red flag if anyone calls and asks for your personal data.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
That's a good tip though, especially for those that are
really unsure who's calling. My philosophy is if I need
to do anything with my phone, I'll go into voter phone,
So anything, whether it's them or not, I can just
say no, thank you, not today.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
And that is great except for the fact that customer
service is in the bin these days. So sometimes you
go into Votaphone or you go into a bank and
they say, yep, you're just going to need to call
our call center to get that action. We can't do
it for you in store. So these brands and businesses
are deliberately trying to push you online and push you
onto the call centers, which makes it really frustrating. But
I think you're onto something there gaily in terms of

(02:39):
if you need to do something, you can initiate the call,
or you can go in store or whatever it might be.
But if someone is contacting you, that's when you need
to really question is it legitimate. And these scammers, they
really rely on pressure tactics, so they give you deadlines,
or they pretend your account is in danger, that there's
going to be fees and fines. All of that stuff
is such a big red flag because a normal business

(03:02):
is not going to fine you five hundred dollars or
charge you an extra fee if you don't take action
in the next twelve hours. So as soon as there
is pressure applied, you should go. That's red flag. I'm
going to hang up and I'm going to call this
business back and see what's actually happening.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I did actually get a call from Centerlink and they
asked me for details. Remember I was here at work, Gales, Yes,
and I got really snarky and I kept saying, you've
called me, why do you need my details? And then
she eventually said, look, I am real and I am
doing my job. You need to go into cent a link.
And that's why I knew she was real, but I
still didn't give her any information. I still went into

(03:36):
send a link.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yes, yeah, and that's a really frustrating thing. I have
had that exact same experience with center Link too, and
I was the same. I was like, why do you
want all this information from me? And it turns out
she was trying to give me some money, so it
worked out well for me.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well, she was trying to take from.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Me, so.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
It's actually the only scare in the world that they
gave you money.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
I was a very big shock and I lined up
in a merang and got the details. Anyway, thank you
so much, Sarah Meganson. You are always so helpful with
your money tips and we appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Thank you, it's a pleasure.