SCAMWATCH

Here is some of the latest information

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Facebook Marketplace Scam

In the digital age, the convenience of online marketplaces like Facebook Marketplace has revolutionised the way we shop. From the comfort of our homes, we can browse, buy, and sell items with ease.  However, this convenience also opens the door to new forms of deception, as some Australians have recently learned the hard way.

A recent 'designer furniture' scam has emerged, involving listings of high-end furniture items being offered at a fraction of their retail value. The catch? A deposit is required to secure the deal, and once paid, the seller disappears, leaving buyers with lighter wallets and no furniture.

Tips:
  Check the location tag of the seller’s Facebook Profile to see if it matches the add.
  Ask to see the item before paying a deposit and resist any claims of urgency.

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Deep Fake Phone Call Scams

Deep Fake scammers have recently progressed from using AI to mimic celebrities in video marketing scams to trawling the internet for personal videos and voice messages.  They then use AI to recreate the voice of one of your loved ones and will use that in a phone call to you with a fake story of them being in some kind of trouble and needing you to send them money urgently.

 

Tips:

• Try to contact your loved one by another means to see if it is really them making the call.

• Ask the caller a question that only your real loved one will know the answer to.

• Urge your loved ones to be very careful about what they post online so that their voices   can ’t be used in a scam.

 

Cruel Centrelink Scam

Targeting the people who need help the most, this scam promises a one-off bonus payment for Age Pension recipients.  Found on unofficial web sites, the scam may include the phrase: '$1800 extra Australian pension coming', followed by prompts such as 'Who is eligible?' and 'Fact check about payment dates'.

Customers are enticed to open the scam link to 'check their eligibility'. However, the too-good-to-be-true payment does not exist and the information provided by the customer in answering the questions posed in the eligibility check are subsequently used by the scammer to commit fraud.

Tip: Only trust http://servicesaustralia.gov.au and http://my.gov.au for official information about pension payments.

Temporary Card Suspension Notice

Have you received an e-mail from your bank advising that your credit card has accidently been suspended during a recent system upgrade and inviting you to click on an embedded link to reactivate your card?  The e-mail may well be addressed ‘generically’ rather than to you by name.  It will also likely advise you that you will not be able to make on-line payments, withdraw cash from ATMs or purchase goods using EFTPOS, and urge you to act quickly to reactivate your card.  But beware, this is a scam  designed to elicit key personal and banking information from you for the purpose of committing fraud.

If you have received such an e-mail, do not click on the link! If you have any concerns about the status of your card, contact your bank directly, either via their official website or in person.

EOFY Scams

As the End of Financial Year approaches, the annual peak in financial scams is on the rise yet again.  Scammers love this time of year as it presents many opportunities to catch people who are seeking to save some money on EOFY bargains or simply reduce their tax bill.  Scammers often use stolen company logos and ABNs in their fake web sites, which may be hidden in a layer behind the real company web site making them difficult to spot.

Be on the watch out for these potential scams:

• Emails or messages appearing to be from myGov or the ATO asking for information relating to your identity or bank account details.

• Emails or messages appearing to be from real charities seeking tax deductable donations late in the lead up to the EOFY.

• On-line shopping web sites that appear to be offering EOFY bargains that, on closer inspection, seem “too good to be true.”

Always use official web sites to do business on-line, and never click on a link embedded in an email or message unless the email or message is responding to a query that you have initiated.  If in doubt, verify the sender’s bona fides via another means.​

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Expiring Loyalty Points

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has issued a warning about a sharp increase in fraudulent schemes designed to trick consumers into handing over personal information to redeem loyalty points.  These scams often arrive as text messages that appear to be from legitimate companies like Telstra, Optus, Coles, Woolworths and other brands that have well-known loyalty schemes, urging customers to act quickly to use or redeem points before they supposedly expire. The messages contain links to fake websites meticulously crafted to mimic the real ones, complete with the brand's logo and familiar layout; however, don't be fooled—these sites are traps set to harvest your login details and financial information.

 

Red flags to watch for:

• Be wary of any message that creates a sense of urgency, claiming that your points or bonuses are on the brink of expiration. This tactic is designed to rush you into clicking without thinking.

• Examine the website address carefully. According to the ACMA, scammers often use URLs with subtle inaccuracies, such as misspellings, unusual words or random letters and numbers

 

If you're uncertain about the authenticity of a message, you should contact the company directly through official channels, such as their customer service phone number or website.

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iPhone Order

This scam is a double agent! You have received an email congratulating you for ordering an iPhone on eBay for $699 with an attachment from PayPal giving details. The delivery address for the iPhone is someone in NSW. The email tells you to ring a particular Sydney number if it's not you, so you do.

The phone is answered immediately by a “Help Centre” operator (no press this button with waiting as per normal), who is well trained and so helpful to find out how someone had fraudulently got hold of your details. After many 'security' questions and super-simple instructions on opening a web page, the operator will ask you to go on to a web page called “easydesk.com.” You may even have used this web page before when you needed help from a friend with something. It enables you to share the screen. But it does more than that. If you go to this web page, you will hand over access to your entire computer to the operator and, in this case, he/she will gain access to everything!! Don’t do it. Hang up instead.

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Deepfake AI Scams

Police have sounded the alarm on a new wave of scams sweeping the country, where fraudsters use artificial intelligence (AI) to create convincing fake videos and audio recordings. These realistic deepfakes can easily fool people into believing they're seeing or hearing from loved ones, celebrities, or public figures, leading to devastating financial consequences.

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A 71-year old Hunter Valley man recently lost his life savings of $411,000 to one such scam, involving an advertisement on Facebook featuring 'endorsements' from high-profile figures (Elon Musk, supported by Anthony Albanese, Julia Gillard, Karl Stefanovic, Natalie Barr and Piers Morgan), which was so convincing that it lured him into a fraudulent investment scheme. In a separate incident, two unrelated women lost $250,000 and $800,000 respectively after watching a deepfake ad of David Koch apparently endorsing another investment opportunity.

 

The Police are urging the public to be vigilant and to look out for telltale signs of deepfake scams.  Here are some things to observe when watching dubious endorsements:

• Unnatural facial expressions

• Odd emphasis on words

• Distortions around the hands and visible body parts

• Mismatched lip-synching

• Unusual blinking patterns

If any of these or other unusual signs are visible in the video, it's time to look away and save yourself from losing your money.

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Apple Gift Card Scam

Have you received an email from someone you know claiming that they can’t speak to you on the phone because of laryngitis, or some other reason, and begging you to do them a ‘quick favour?.’

Delete it now and do not respond.

It is a trick to get you to buy an Apple Gift Card, typically worth several hundred dollars, for them on the pretext that they want to send it to someone as a present, or perhaps someone in need, and haven’t been able to get one themselves.  They will then ask you to unpack the card and send them a photo of the card, together with the card code, on a promise of reimbursing you later.  What they will actually do with the information you send them is spend the money that you put on the card and disappear.

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A message from “Australia Post,”?  Detete it now!

This phishing scam operates through a text message that claims to be from Australia Post.

It reads: 'The package you (sent or are expecting) has arrived at our warehouse and cannot be sent because of incorrect address information, please fill in the exact information again, and we will send it within 24 hours.'

The message then prompts you to click on a link to provide the correct details, but beware—this is a trap! Like all phishing scam, is a deceptive practice where the scammer is seeking to lure you into giving personal information. This information can then be sold, or potentially used to access financial accounts and other sensitive data.

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Harvey Norman Dell Laptop for $3 Scam on Facebook?

Another phishing scam, this time on Facebook, purporting to be an offer from Harvey Norman advertising Dell laptops for $3. It operates in the same way as similar ads for cheap i-phones from JB HiFi. ‘Buyers’ are required to provide personal details including names, addresses and payment details. However, the ‘vendor’ is not Harvey Norman (or JB HiFi), but an overseas-based scammer. Facebook has declined to remove the ads on the basis that they do not contravene Facebook’s ‘community standards.’