Australian consumers are forewarned of a fake telephone survey with the aim of defrauding them using their own bank accounts and other information.

The Australian Bankers' Association (ABA) has received some reports from the public that scammers are running a bogus telephone survey with the aim of defrauding bank customers.

Members of the public have contacted the ABA to inform us they have received a scam phone call. Thankfully, they have discontinued the call before providing any confidential information.

The bogus survey caller informs the person that they are completing a customer satisfaction survey and then asks a series of questions regarding the person's banking provider, such as:

  • With whom do you bank?
  • How long have you banked with them?
  • Are you satisfied with the service?

The scammers claim they are completing the survey on behalf of the "Banking Association of Australia" or other variations of the ABA's name. This survey is bogus.

Steven Münchenberg, Chief Executive of the ABA, said, "The ABA does not carry out customer satisfaction surveys. A number of bank customers have recently alerted us to this so-called 'survey' and told us they terminated the call after becoming suspicious."

"Some of the bank customers explained that the bogus caller asked for personal identification details. This information once extracted could be used by the criminals to commit crimes."

Mr Münchenberg advised this is not the first time this telephone scam has been staged by criminals. The ABA advises that if you receive a call such as this, just hang up. If you have provided any information over the telephone, then you should immediately contact your bank, which will take action to protect and monitor your account.

Tips to protect your financial identity

  • Don't provide your PIN or Internet banking login or password to anyone;
  • Guard the following identity information carefully and only provide to trusted people and entities: date of birth, current address, driver's licence number and passport details.
  • Delete spam and scam e-mail - if the offer sounds too good to be true - it probably is;
  • Keep your anti-virus and firewall software up-to-date;
  • Do not respond to requests that ask you to call unknown or un-verified phone numbers. Generally only trust numbers that appear on the back of your cards, or can be verified through a phone directory or other trusted source; and
  • Be very careful about clicking on links in e-mails. Do not use links to access websites. Enter the correct address (URL) for websites into the address bar of your browser.