I've been away from the Forum for over a week due to my
stupidity of allowing suspected hackers pretending to
be from Telstra to remotely access my computer - before
wising up to the scam and hanging up when they asked me
for my banking details. The con artists phoned me
shortly after New Year's offering to help improve the
performance of my computer. But when they asked for
my banking details I finally smelled a rat and hung up
the phone.

They asked me if my computer had been running slowly,
and well it had. A female hacker tricked me into
allowing remote access to my computer. I hate to think
she had access to my files but luckily there's
nothing of any value there. I don't use internet banking.

I want to warn others to be careful and not be sucked into
giving out any personal information. I've been told
that these remote access scammers impersonate well-known
businesses like Telstra, NBN, Microsoft, Energy companies and
steal money and banking information. Even Identity theft.

So folks be careful!

It will end up hurting you badly. Never give an unsolicited caller access to your computer and
under no circumstances offer any personal details over the phone.
Has anybody else experienced anything similar?

If you receive a phone call out of the blue from someone
requesting remote access to your computer - it's a scam.
Just hang up.

The scammers will spin you a very credible
and believable story about why they need
access to your computer. For example they
may tell you that there is a virus on your computer that
needs fixing and they need your help to catch hackers.
I fell for it - don't you.

We already knew about such things, Foxy. Amazed that you didn't.

Foxy thanks
Yes we, some of us know about it, but I prefer to tell it openly and hope some one is helped by it
nasty comments from nasty minds are worthless again thanks

Hi ttbn,

I fell into their trap mainly because we were considering
calling Telstra for an NBN connection. When the call came
through claiming to be from Telstra regarding NBN
- I got sucked in. Plus the woman also told me that my computer
was being hacked and Telstra wanted to insure my computer
security. It was an unfortunate series of events and I accepted
the coincidence and thought it all credible - especially when
in December - I was advised by "Telstra" that NBN was coming
to our street. It was all a series of circumstances that
I just happened to step into.

Dear Belly,

I'm still a bit unnerved - especially as the hackers kept
ringing us even after that experience. Telstra Security
checked the telephone numbers I managed to get off our
phone and told us they were not Telstra phone numbers.
Also I tried ringing some of those numbers and got voice
mail telling me that the numbers "were not connected."

Telstra managed to block all telephone calls from Asia,
the Middle East, South America, and Africa. Now our dial
tone is a long "beep." Hopefully we will not get as many
of these calls any more. Our telephone system has a blocking
capacity for local numbers - which we've already used.

I had to let people from the Philipines into my computer & even though it was through Telstra it was rather un-nerving.
I think Telstra should be hammered for forcing us to hand our computers over to someone in another country. So far all the technicians have been very competent & very polite to converse with but what guarantee is there that non-genuine people infiltrate Telstra ?
Anything to do with setting up an account etc should not happen outside the country. Either train Australians or tell the shareholders to look somewhere else for easy money.
Imagine if ever there is some conflict & these countries can turn off our services at a whim ?
In our part of Australia we have no choice of ISP but if ever another one comes here Telstra would lose %100 of it's customers.