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Red Deer senior: Beware of callers posing as representatives of TELUS

Red Deer senior avoids scam
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TELUS recommends that customers never volunteer personal, or sensitive information, like banking or credit card account numbers, passwords, or social insurance number. (File photo)

A Red Deer senior wants to warn others about fraudsters claiming to be with TELUS.

Sharon Vanin said as a long-time TELUS user it’s not unusual to receive calls about their promotions and has signed up for offers in the past.

“This is the first time it hasn’t been legitimate,” Vanin said.

On Tuesday she received a call from someone that claimed to be with the promotion and mobility department at TELUS, and received what appeared to be an email from TELUS customer service.

But soon Vanin was asked for her banking information, which has never happened before, so she put an end to the call.

“The next morning when I phoned the company they confirmed they would never ask for banking information over the phone. But it’s so convincing because it’s very similar to when TELUS legitimately calls you about other promotions.”

Since then Vanin has been alerting others.

“I’m certainly spreading the message to all of my friends. It’s good to have people aware. Luckily I didn’t lose anything.”

Related:

TELUS said it recently launched TELUS Call Control, a free feature available to all landline and wireless customers that blocks the majority of auto-dialed calls.

To combat phishing calls, the feature requires unknown callers to listen to a brief message and manually respond with a one-digit code. The majority of nuisance calls, including scams, are generated by computer-dialers that enable spammers to dial many numbers at once and can be blocked by Call Control.

TELUS also offers a free, educational program that focuses on Internet and smartphone safety and security.

Other protection tips include:

l Never volunteer personal, or sensitive information, like banking or credit card account numbers, passwords, or social insurance number.

l If in doubt, hang up the phone and call the business the caller claimed to be with directly to be absolutely certain.

l Do not respond, or click on any links or open attachments, to a suspicious email or text message.

l As it is possible that when two parties are on the phone and only one hangs up, the line can stay active for up to 10 seconds. To be safe, wait for at least 10 seconds before picking up the phone again.



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