It’s the latest phone scam to hit Australia, and if you answer the phone to someone asking repeatedly ‘can you hear me?’… do not say ‘yes’.
The scam was reportedly prolific in the United States and United Kingdom throughout the first months of 2017. Now it’s active in Australia.
It’s believed the question ‘can you hear me?’ is meant to elicit a ‘yes’ response that could see Australians lose thousands of dollars.
This ‘yes’ is then recorded and used by the scammers to authorise payments in your name.
If they already have your phone number and address, ‘yes’ might be all they need to access your bank accounts.
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Police have spoken to a victim of the ‘can you hear me?’ scam in Mackay, and they are warning the rest of Australia to be wary.
“We believe it to be hitting many areas,” a statement from Senior Constable Steve Smith released on Wednesday reads.
“If the scammer already has your mobile phone number and some sensitive identification information of yours… you may have some serious and legitimate reasons to be concerned,” Smith said.
Queensland Police encourage Australians to do three things to help fight the scam:
- Spread the word
- If you receive a ‘can you hear me?’ phone call – hang up – don’t respond.
- If you did respond with a “yes” … alert your financial institution and monitor your accounts closely.
Have you been the victim of a phone scam before? Tell us your stories in the comments below…
Top Comments
I had a call from a robot this morning, (barely even managed to get "Hello" out of my mouth before it started talking, didn't even verify my name) claiming to be from the ATO, saying I was going to be sued for money I owed. Yeah, I don't think so. I also had one a couple of years ago, asking for my husband, saying that he owed money on a loan he'd taken out. Luckily I'm the one who deals with the money in our house, so I was pretty sure it was BS, and a quick Google proved me right. I was telling a friend about it later, (one who has a few money issues), and she said that she would have probably just believed them, and gone right along with them. The thing that made me most angry about that one was that they managed to call the day his mum died - I'm glad I'm the one who took the call.
This article is a bit vague. All of my banks require a password, not me saying "yes". So even if these people somehow have my account number they are not going to get anywhere unless they have my passwords or my mobile phone to get verification text codes. Am I missing something?
Nope. Pure hyperbole. I can think of no possible transactions that could even take place with no other words spoken than the word yes over and over again. Well, maybe non material transactions, but I digress. Snopes have reported this is unsubstantiated. While people have received these calls, no one has been defrauded in the process. It's impossible. I can't even talk to Centrelink without confirming my name, address, date of birth
Over the phone contractual agreements just need confirmation. So for example a phone provider requires you to say "yes" at a certain time. So it could be that they fraudulently use that "yes" to open accounts etc.