With cost of living pressures compounded in the wake of the holiday festivities, scammers are at it again offering a refund to Energy Australia customers for ‘an overcharge on your yearly consumption.’
With a subject that reads, ‘Claim Your Refund for Overcharge on Yearly Energy Usage’, the email says that ‘A refund has been issued to you due to an overcharge on your yearly consumption’, to review your details and claim your refund, click ‘Continue’.
The sender name is ‘Energy AU’, attempting to mimic a legitimate Energy Australia email, and the sender email display address is ‘energyaus(at)rnroute(dot)com’.
An example of the email is shown below:
After clicking through from the email, the first phishing page titled ‘Refund Due to Overcharge on Yearly Consumption’ asks that you re-enter your email address and your full name.
Click ‘Next’ and you’ll be prompted to enter your ‘Payout Method’. The page asks for your credit card details in order to process your refund, including your credit card number, the expiry date and the CVV.
Click ‘Next’ again and the following page will request your ‘One-Time Security Code’. Supplying this security code is posed as a confirmation for your refund to be processed, however it is in fact enabling the scammers to process a fraudulent transaction on your credit card.
Energy Australia and other energy providers are regularly impersonated in bill scams, because of their large customer base, and because we’re so reliant on our energy providers and familiar with their regular communications, the scammers are hoping that you’ll drop your guard.
MailGuard advises all recipients of the emails to delete them immediately without clicking on any links. Responding or providing your personal details can result in your sensitive information being used for criminal activity and may have a severe negative impact on your business and its’ financial well-being.
MailGuard urges users not to click links or open attachments within emails that:
- Are not addressed to you by name.
- Appear to be from a legitimate company but use poor English or omits personal details that a legitimate sender would include.
- Are from businesses that you were not expecting to hear from, and/or
- Take you to a landing page or website that is not the legitimate URL of the company the email is purporting to be sent from.
- Many businesses turn to MailGuard after an incident or a near miss, often as a result of an email similar to the one shown above. If unwanted emails are a problem for your business, don’t wait until it’s too late.
Reach out to our team for a confidential discussion by emailing expert@mailguard.com.au or calling 1300 30 44 30.
One email is all that it takes
All that it takes to devastate your business is a cleverly worded email message that can steal sensitive user credentials or disrupt your business operations. If scammers can trick one person in your company into clicking on a malicious link or attachment, they can gain access to your data or inflict damage on your business.
For a few dollars per staff member per month, you can protect your business with MailGuard's specialist, 'zero zero-day' email security. Special Ops for when speed matters! Our real-time 'zero zero-day', email threat detection amplifies our client’s intelligence, knowledge, security and defence. Talk to a solution consultant at MailGuard today about securing your company's inboxes.
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