Who knew? Nicole the preferred name for scammers!
First, let us salute you Nicole – honest, friendly and hard-working and doing a great job in customer service and contact centres all over Australia.
BUT, Nicole, be warned! Your name, Nicole, is the preferred name for phone scammers and ‘fake callers’. For the second and into the third quarter of this 2019 year, it’s the name reported by people who get those calls at home, from a scammer pretending to help. They sound legitimate and professional – but they are NOT.
We heard it on Radio 2GB Sydney, from Nigel Phair, an expert in cyber security. He’s the head of UNSW Canberra Cyber, whose focus is training and teaching on all aspects of cyber security.
He told 2GB recently that Nicole has been the “favoured scamming name at the moment for people purporting to be from the NBN, calling to fix your problems.”
Listen to his interview (here) with John Stanley on 2GB Ray Hadley Show on Friday 12 July. (click here – from about 21:15min through to about 24:30min after you press Play).
It serves as a warning to us all to build trust and excellence in contact centre and customer service delivery.
The only problem is, according to Nigel Phair, that these scammers present as very professional, using the “best in class” marketing techniques to catch you off guard. They are using the best practice from OUR industry, to con people.
They sound like a seriously good and helpful call centre. Around dinner time you’re not concentrating, or you have a problem which you need fixed, quickly. And, generally they purport to be from trusted brands, like a bank, Tax Office, or the NBN, for example.
You have been warned! They are fakes.
At Citrus Group we recruit for real contact centres in Australia – selecting the highest quality candidates for our range of clients great and small. We are stringent with our assessments, we put candidates through extensive assessments, and we do everything we can to select the best and eliminate poor performance.
We must, in our contact centre industry, be eternally vigilant.
So, when you pick up the phone and Nicole is on the line – make sure it’s the NICE Nicole, delivering quality, legitimate customer service to Australians. Not the NASTY Nicole, trying to rip you off!
For more information:
T: +61 2 8203 5760