Many members of the Indian community in Australia have told SBS Punjabi that they have received phone calls from hoax callers claiming to represent utility companies and offering to pay bills on their behalf.
Victims claim the callers lured them by offering a 30 to 40% discount on their upcoming household bills primarily energy, telephone, council or tax bills provided they choose to pay through them.
Highlights:
- Victims receive a phone from hoax callers offering a fake discount of up to 40% 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
One of the victims is Melbourne-based Vikas Sharma who claims he has lost $1200 to the scam after the caller offered him a hefty discount on his upcoming household bill.
"The scammer said he was calling from a bulk billing company and offered me a hefty discount if I paid through him. He then proceeded to pay my overdue bills and sent over receipts to confirm that the payment had been made in full," Mr Sharma told SBS Punjabi.
The 36-year-old who works at a bread factory said the caller won his trust when he encouraged him to contact the service provider to verify the transaction.
"Once I received a confirmation, he won my trust because he very smartly asked me to check with the service provider if they had received the payment which made me believe that the transaction was in fact legitimate," he said.
The unsuspecting victim said he later found out that the caller had used stolen credit cards to make the payments which were reversed as soon as he transferred the discounted bill amount to the caller's bank account.
The unsuspecting victim reluctantly paid the scammer the discounted amount Source: Supplied
"He reversed all the payments as soon as I made the cash deposit to his bank account. I realised that I had been scammed only when I started receiving notifications of my bills being overdue after a few days," Mr Sharma said.
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Protect yourself against scammers
Here’s how you can protect yourself from these scams:
In response to our query, a spokesperson from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said they were aware of reports of scammers contacting consumers and claiming to offer them a discount on their bills.
They gave the following protection advice:
- Remember, if a deal sounds too good to be true – it probably is.
- Never send money or give credit card, online account details or copies of personal documents such as bills to anyone you don’t know or trust.
- If you receive a phone call like this stop and think – don’t rush into sending your bills (which contain a lot of personally identifiable information about you) and do an internet search on the offer – are there any comments from people advising this may be a scam?
- Call your energy company or utility company – is this a deal they have heard of? Will they accept coupons as advised by the scammer? If not, then don’t accept the offer. Government agencies are unlikely to accept payments such as those outlined above.
- If you are experiencing financial hardship speak to your utility company, they may have payment plans that can assist without you needing to deal with a scammer.
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 .
Click on the audio icon to listen to the full audio conversation with Vikas Sharma.
