A South Coast man has shared a detailed account of how sophisticated phone scammers came within minutes of stealing his family's internet identities and funds.
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He warns the scammers are using the rollout of the NBN to target households - and even internet-savvy residents could be taken in.
The Broulee man arrived home on Thursday, April 4, to find his distressed wife had been on the phone for about an hour to two people purporting to be from Telstra - one a "manager", the other a "technician".
The couple are not Telstra customers but, importantly, the scammers had used their knowledge of recent disruptions to the household's service to convince his wife of their legitimacy with the NBN.
He said they took turns to bully her into providing details and running programs, warning her she had just 30 seconds to follow their instructions.
"They stated they knew of our problem of static interruption on the phone line and internet disruption and lack of mail server over the past two weeks, including the days, times and what was affected," he said.
"These facts were true.
"They claimed they could rectify the problem by my wife running an internet speed check.
"They then said the NBN would fix everything. They said they could see our speed on our iMac and quoted the figure.
READ ALSO: Failure to connect - Ongoing NBN woes
"They directed my wife to download some Apple applications, including security upgrades and another application that looked like a shared dropbox.
These people had the capability/technology to steal our entire identity
- Scam target
"They kept asking my wife to verify our IP address."
They then gave her a false IP address, saying this was the correct one.
It was then the scammers made their money move.
"They directed my wife to open her Mastercard internet site and run an upgrade via her iPhone and they would send an SMS code to verify," the resident said.
No verification code arrived, but the scammers kept the pressure on his wife.
They bullied and harrassed my wife for one hour, to the point of her being totally confused, in tears
"They at all times suggested they had the ability to monitor what was on the screen of our iMac as she was doing these tasks," he said.
"They bullied and harrassed my wife for one hour, to the point of her being totally confused, in tears and practically believing everything they were asking her to do.
"They were saying 'you only have 30 seconds' to do certain tasks."
At that point, the resident arrived home from work and took over the phone call - a change in circumstances which did not go down well on the other end of the line.
"I was harassed by the caller, who said 'we are Telstra, trying to fix your problem'," he said.
Of most concern to him is that the scammers sounded genuine, given that "Broulee had just had NBN equipment placed in our street over the past two weeks".
The scammers insisted they were providing the internet connection to their home.
They pressured the residents to provide his IP address and said they could confirm its status.
The residents asked for identification or an email proof thereof and the scammers agreed to send it - it never arrived.
"I asked for a direct phone number for confirmation, which was begrudgingly given," the resident said.
They at all times suggested they had the ability to monitor what was on the screen of our iMac
"Unknown to them, I dialled the number on my iPhone as we were speaking."
The response was: "Optus advises that this number is no longer connected."
"Telstra versus Optus? I said goodbye and hung up," the resident said.
"I believe without intervention these people had the capability/technology to steal our entire identity from this scam/hack, if it were not for Apple security capabilities and being totally challenged as to proving their identity."
He stressed that even savvy residents could be taken in, and more vulnerable people were at significant risk.
They had an answer for everything and were very polished
- Broulee resident
"They had an answer for everything and were very polished with it," he warned.
"The elderly and non-internet savvy person would be a soft target."
The call followed a similar attempt on a Dalmeny man recently.
