Highlights
- Victims receive a phone from hoax callers offering a fake discount of up to 50% on household bills
- Many members of the Indian community have lost hundreds of dollars to the cold-call phone scam
- Scammers pay the bills in full and reverse the transaction after retrieving the amount from victims
Sydney-based Narinder Singh Virk claims he recently received a call from a Western Australian number from a caller pretending to be from a legitimate company, who offered him a hefty discount on his outstanding truck rego bill worth $400.
Speaking to SBS Punjabi, Mr Virk said the caller offered him up to 50 per cent discount on his bill amount.
“I received multiple calls from different WA phone numbers, and the callers said that their company has many discount vouchers to spare due to the COVID-19 which are going to expire soon," Mr Virk said.
"The caller then offered to pay my utility bills using those discount vouchers and in turn promised me a discount of 30 per cent on the total amount to help people during the pandemic."
Mr Virk said the caller who initially started the conversation in English switched to Punjabi to lure him into the trap.
"The callers sound professional, they can speak both English and Punjabi fluently and even threw some Punjabi names to lure me into the trap. I eventually agreed for him to pay for my truck's rego that was just over $400.”
"Once the payment was made, the caller asked me to call the company to confirm if they had received the amount," he said.
Mr Virk added that the caller insisted he should pay him in cash instead of a bank transfer, raising his suspicion.
Victims lose hundreds of dollars to phone scam offering fake discounts on utility bills. Source: Getty Images/Adranik Hakobyan
"After everything was sorted, he insisted I should pay the discounted amount to him $300 in cash, which I refused. He was so desperate that then he offered me a discount of another $50 provided I paid cash," he said.
He only realised that he had been scammed when the utility provider sent him a reminder to pay the outstanding rego bill.
“I feel lucky that I didn’t agree to pay in cash. Otherwise, after making the cash payment, the fraudsters would have reversed the original payment made by them, and I would have lost $300," he said.
Mr Virk claims that many of his friends have received similar calls, but they are hesitant to admit that they have been conned.
Anyone who suspects they are a victim of such scam should act quickly to reduce the risk of financial loss or other damages.
For more information on scams, phishing, and how you can protect yourself online, visit – a program run by the Australia Cyber Security Centre (ACSC). To report scams, visit .
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The federal government's coronavirus tracing app COVIDSafe is available for download from your phone's app store.
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