Scammers will stop at nothing to get you to hand over your money, expecting you to part ways by trickery and deception.
Much of what they do can be predictable, and you can learn to recognise the signs and stop yourself before it happens. Protections from devices and telcos can even go some of the way from stopping the scam before it affects you financially, as well.
It can happen to anyone, young or old, but there are ways to protect you and others from the dangers of scams.
But there are also things telcos and devices can’t protect from, and scammers have worked it out: having you be the caller, rather than them calling in.
When a scammer calls in, the phone service it uses and the network of countries it can come from, combined with approaches in the script and previous complaints, can all be connected together in a way to see the call stopped. Just like that. You can largely see them coming.
A growing type of scam makes all of this more difficult, as criminals attempt to push you into calling the scammer, producing a problem for telcos and device makers.
It’s a change in how scams work with a recent type named “callback scams”, because they work exactly as they sound: you receive a message or invoice with a phone number, and when you call back, you’re talking to the scammer as opposed to anyone actually useful.
The approach is similar to a “Wangiri” scam where the criminal lures you into a situation where you call them back, only the result can seem far more insidious.
Rather than simply returning a phone call from abroad, callback scams use the guise of an urgent message or a fraudulently purchased product to have you call someone back. The moment you make the call, you’ve effectively made contact with the scammer, and while it can feel safe at first, the fact that you’ve called the scammer makes the call seem more real.
According to research by YouGov for Telstra, 69 percent of Australians are sure they’d never proactively call a scammer, making us less likely to feel like we have… even if we have. It also comes as 85 percent of Australians prefer to resolve urgent charges by phone, something scammers are all too ready to take advantage of, turning callback attempts into urgent messages that we’ll proactively call for.
It’s happening in increasing numbers despite the government’s changes to the sender ID rules on SMS, with 64 percent of Australians having received callback scam messages, with an increase also found from Telstra’s own data, as well.
And since the problem is that you are effectively calling the scammer, it means you are then intentionally engaging with the scam attempt, making it more difficult to refute.
“Scammers don’t quit easy so now they are creating a story to convince us to call them. This is usually an email, text, or calendar invite that carries a sense of urgency around things like unrecognised subscriptions or bank charge,” said Darren Pauli, Cyber Security Expert at Telstra.
“Whatever their story, it always points to a phone number for people to call to set things right,” he said.
“And we do call.”
How to recognise a callback scam
It’s all too easy for a scammer to message us. No phone number is sacred. You may end up getting several messages a day or week, or even just one every so often.
Criminals need only to hook you in once to scam you for a hefty amount, and the amounts can be considerable.
“They can be devastating,” Pauli told Pickr, noting that “while they want your wallet, they won’t throw away personal information, passwords, or anything else you happen to hand over.”
The problem may actually be recognition, but this can largely be about training you to respond to urgency with a little bit of caution.
While an urgent message from a known phone number in your address book is one where urgency makes sense, a message claiming urgency from any other phone number isn’t necessarily urgent. Rather, it is likely simply playing on urgency, a known tactic of scammers.
It’s why you get messages and phone calls at random times in the middle of the night, with scammers using late hours as a form of trickery to ensnare you. Late nights imply urgency simply because of the time, and we don’t always think in the moment.
But the message is clear: if a random number claims something as urgent, take a few minutes to question it, to probe it, and to consider whether it’s legit. Short of important matters from the numbers you have saved, most “urgent” messages are likely not actually that critical, and may be attempting to get you to click aimlessly, or in this case, make a call back.
“Spotting the difference between legitimate and dodgy email addresses and links can be difficult, so your first instinct should be the message you are reading,” said Pauli. “Did you expect it? If not, slow down and don’t respond hastily.”
What you can do (and what you shouldn’t do)
One thing you can typically do is ignore messages like these. They mean nothing and only carry a payload if you call in, taking details and stealing aspects of your life you’ll want to keep under lock and key.
You should definitely not call into them for fun, and do what you can to think and pause about the urgency, not just because the scams are clearly that, but because telcos can’t be as proactive about protecting you from them.
A good example is Telstra’s Cleaner Pipes program, a form of network security that prevents scams from running en masse on its network. It’s designed for inbound calls and texts, but can’t do much when the mechanism is outbound.
“Callback scams present a different challenge because the customer is intentionally placing the call. That’s why public awareness remains critical alongside network protections,” said Pauli.
“The most effective defence is to slow down your thinking when unexpected messages arrive and only ever use contact information listed on official apps and websites.”
