I was sitting in the back room as the afternoon sun came streaming in through the window when I received a phone call from someone informing me that I had been in a minor motor accident and that they wanted my details.
This was a curious thing. For a start, I am currently in a hard lockdown in Sydney's Western Suburbs and am not allowed to travel more than 5km away from the house. Secondly (and this is perhaps the most telling), to unless the supposed accident happened in my driveway, then I think that I would know if I was in a motor accident. Mrs Rollo might very well accuse me of having my head in the clouds but I would hope that if I was in a motor vehicle accident that I would at very least be aware of it.
When I asked the person at the other end of the line (who was very obviously in a call centre) where the supposed accident happened, they refused to tell me. When they asked for my name, not only did I not tell them but they then proceeded to become abusive and tell me that I was going to go to gaol for fleeing the scene without providing my details. The kicker was that they then asked me for my number plate details, or rather asked me to "confirm" them. When I told them that I would confirm the details if they could tell me what my number plate is, then I told them that I couldn't "confirm" any detail which they didn't have.
Not only can they not tell me where the motor accident is supposed to have happened, they don't know my name, they don't know my number plate, and apparently they don't even know what kind of car that I drive. All of that seems totally believable if they want to serve me with a notice of claim or demand. I am really curious as to where they would send the notice, considering that they appear to know literally nothing about me or my car whatsoever; except that I answered the phone.
I feel really sorry for the person whose car that I hit. I imagine that this faceless, nameless, imaginary person was having all kinds of imaginary motor accidents, in thousands of unspecified locations all over the world and probably many of them simultaneously. Not only is this poor unfortunate imaginary person having loads of imaginary accidents, they don't even know where they are.
On some level I am intrigued by the puzzle of how this scam operates. They probably have photographs of an existing dented car, or perhaps they even have a dented car which they are then presenting to an insurance company or perhaps the court. Maybe this is merely an operation to collect number plate details so that they can get some kind of refund on an e-tag? I honestly have no idea and find it both interesting and knavish.
To be honest, I am surprised that the person lasted that long because during the course of getting precisely zero information from me, they became increasingly belligerent and abusive before telling me that they were going to do nasty things to my children (which is again really difficult, as I don't have any).
For the record, the phone number of this rather abusive and blunt fishing expedition is 0402577479. I assume that this phone number also isn't real.
My hope is that other people who will receive such calls are not deceived into giving any personal and/or financial details.
I do not understand how this scam operates exactly but I do know that the operators are rather unpleasant and they probably see people as acceptable targets.
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