AN OFFER OF RIGHT OF REPLY to our story yesterday (read it here) from seniordriveraus to Scott Charlton, the CEO of Transurban, elicited a quick response.
The company’s very personable Complaints Manager, Thanh Ho, repeatedly reassured us that he had investigated the concerns we raised and found no sign that Transurban’s or Linkt’s data had been hacked.
His explanation was that scammers send out vast numbers of SMS messages and our receipt of a Linkt SMS scam so soon after applying for a temporary pass was purely coincidental. He was adamant that our personal information had not been compromised. This despite neither of us having ever before had any communication purporting to be from Linkt or Transurban, and that the SMS was sent to my wife’s phone after we had applied for a temporary pass in her name.
We find that to be quite a coincidence, but have no reason to doubt his word.
Thanh told us that he had taken on board our comments about Linkt’s recommendation to immediately delete the message, and then asking that people making a scam report upload a screenshot of the message to the report. He tells us this will be addressed. He also accepted that in view of the increasing number of scam SMSs, Linkt was receiving enquiries and reports from all states in Australia, not just those where they operate toll roads. In view of that, he told us he would also be looking at including all states on the general enquiry form. And finally, he agreed with our comment that the poorly worded and ungrammatical response we received in fact exhibited many of the characteristics of scam messages, and exactly what Linkt (and others) suggest are what we should look for to avoid being taken in by a scam.
Should any of our readers have problems with scam emails passing themselves off as being from Linkt, Thanh recommended reporting them to Report a scam – Linkt
We’d like to add that seniordriveraus would be happy to take up your case with Linkt if you wish to contact us with details of your problem. Simply post us using the Comment box below.