Phone calls to Queenslanders where an employee of a law firm asks for the resident’s personal details could be a well organised scam or identity theft racket.
And divulging those details to a stranger who phones at home could be potentially dangerous, the Queensland Office of Fair Trading warned.
and:
The caller had her full name, and the call sounded official, but when the man asked to confirm her address, he had the wrong information.
“He gave an address that sounded totally fictional, something like ‘Mahogany Grove, Sweet Waters’,” she said.
She told the man he had the wrong number, be he continued to probe her for details, and asked if she lived close to Brisbane.
“He sounded quite nice, not aggressive at all; the type that puts you at ease.
It’s always good to publicise ID theft scam techniques that operate over mediums other than email – which have been around for much longer anyway, of course. A good rule for salespeople or conducting a survey is to start with small talk, ask innocent questions, gain trust then gradually ask more probing questions. The same rule applies to scammers of course, so if this is a scam, it’s not a very good one.
It’s always very hard to be paranoid of people’s intentions if you don’t want to appear rude. My favourite example of this is swipe card access into buildings. In a big company, it’s likely that an employee won’t know all the other employees; yet if someone is behind you, is wearing a suit and looks friendly, would you hold the door for them or slam it in their face? You should do the latter, but most do the former.
