From ACCC Scamwatch - 27/4/2021

Losses to car ad scams climbing

Dear radar subscriber,

Australians have already lost over $288,000 to vehicle scams in the first quarter of this year, more than all losses reported to Scamwatch in 2019, and scammers have now begun impersonating defence personnel to con their victims.

In a vehicle scam, scammers post fake online listings offering to sell in-demand cars at well below market value to lure potential buyers looking for a second hand vehicle. Scammers seek payment to secure the car for the buyer but never deliver the vehicle.

Vehicle scams are commonly hosted on sites such as Facebook Marketplace, Autotrader, Car Sales, Cars Guide and Gumtree.

“As second hand car sales increased during the pandemic, unfortunately so did vehicle scams. If current trends continue, Australians could lose much more to vehicle scams this year than the $1 million lost in 2020,” ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said.

“We want to raise awareness of these scams to reduce the number of people who may be vulnerable to them.”

Got out of bed this morning to a phone call from someone claiming to be from Telstra. Indian accent. Scam detector goes off in my head. I went about starting up my computer and entertained what he wanted for a while. He told me to check out the event viewer to find that I have error messages on my computer. After he asked that I load the run command and type in something seemingly obviously not right. Having figured that I had not relieved myself for the morning, I put the phone down and went to the toilet. I came back a minute later and the guy was still talking, wondering where I went. I hung up on him. A minute later, I got another phone call. Then another phone call, when I did not answer. 3 different phone numbers. I suppose the phone numbers were changed because they did not want to be tracked through a number that goes back to India.

I recorded the times, the phone numbers and whatever was said over the phone and posted it to a Telstra reporting site. Telstra wrote back to say that it was a scam:

Thank you for letting us know about this.

What you encountered was, in fact, a scam.  In no way was this a call from Telstra.

These sorts of frauds have been around for quite a while, often impersonating organisations such as Microsoft, Telstra, the AFP, eBay, Amazon, the ATO, and others. The goal of the fraudsters is to try to gain access to your computer, to your passwords, and sometimes to your bank accounts or other financial information.

Telstra should never unexpectedly contact you and ask for this sort of information and access.

We've also published an article which contains more information about these scams, as well as a few tips as to how you can better identify if a call is truly Telstra, or a potential fraudster.

https://exchange.telstra.com.au/how-to-spot-a-scammer/

You can find out more about this type of scam, as well as other scams, at:

https://www.telstra.com.au/help/contact-us/scams

Finally, additional information available at:

https://www.telstra.com.au/help/contact-us/complaints/verify

If you are ever in doubt about the authenticity of a call, we advise you to simply hang up and contact us through other channels, such as the phone number printed on your Telstra bill, or via MyAccount or even through web forms such as the one you used to reach out to us on for this issue.

If for any reason you’ve provided any information, or access, to these fraudsters, please do let us know so that we may offer you some additional advice.

Additional general information over this sort of scam can be found at the ACCC's ScamWatch website:

https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams/buying-or-selling/remote-access-scams

There are a variety of technologies available to help you block the sorts of calls you received. Telstra has a product known as the Call Guardian which provides this sort of functionality as well. These devices work by allowing you to control which phone numbers are able to ring you, reach your voicemail, and so on. If this sort of product is of interest to you, you can find out more about it on our website https://checkout.telstra.com.au/consumer/accessories/home-internet/20206

The Call Guardian is a fantastic way for you to control exactly who does and does not have the ability to ring through to your home telephone, so we would encourage you to take a look as we have heard fantastic things from customers who appreciated the flexibility and options it provides them.

For example, the Call Guardian can be configured so that only trusted phone numbers are able to actually make your phone ring.  Or, it can be configured so that specific annoying numbers are silently blocked.

Another really useful feature is that it can require callers to "announce" themselves before the call makes your line ring.  This means that a huge number of automated calls, including many scam calls, are silently blocked as well.

If you have NBN from Telstra, you can also use MyAccount to create a "call forwarding rule" which can greatly help cut down on intrusive calls.  For example, you can forward hidden/blocked callers directly to the MessageBank to avoid having them ring through to your telephone.  More information about this feature is available at:  https://www.telstra.com.au/support/category/home-phone/features-settings/how-to-set-up-call-forwarding-on-home-phone

Telstra's dedicated Unwelcome Calls Team also has information available via: https://www.telstra.com.au/consumer-advice/unwelcome-calls

In some cases, the Unwelcome Calls Team may be able to assist with blocking of certain numbers which may be particularly bothersome.  If this is of interest to you, you can contact the team directly via the above website.

Telstra is working extremely hard on doing what we can to minimise the impact of these scams, and you can read more about some of our efforts at:

https://exchange.telstra.com.au/were-now-blocking-around-1-5-million-scam-calls-
a-week/

This new capability will have a significant impact in identifying and blocking these calls before they reach you, however, no technology can prevent 100% of these unwanted calls, even though that is our shared hope.  Telstra is also putting significant pressure on those telephone carriers who are responsible for these calls and there is a positive indication that those carriers are starting to take this problem as seriously as Telstra is.

You can see some other recent scams which Telstra has been monitoring by visiting:

https://tel.st/rec

Just lately when I send an email somewhere, I get an alert from ebay giving me the location of a hacking attempt, trying to access my ebay account. Ebay strongly advises me to change my password each time when they send the alerts

Two named suburbs in Sydney so far, hackers have tried from. I haven't sent emails for ages, but this happened just when I started sending them again

UnSubRocky wrote on May 20^th, 2021 at 8:11pm:


Do NOT engage in conversation with any of those scammers!  Do NOT believe a word they say!  IF they get access to your computer by you following their "instructions", then you are in BIG BIG trouble.

Neferti wrote on May 20^th, 2021 at 8:37pm:


I am not that naive, nerf. Twenty years ago, someone calling up to make this kind of scam might have gotten by me. But, then again, twenty years ago, the computer I used had such little relevance to internet banking and other accounts that there was no need to be called by scam artists.

I do all my banking offline. All purchases I do online is paid for through bank payments. Someone getting access to my computer would only find that I surf the internet, play online games, and have little in terms of financial access to records.

I usually roll my eyes when the banks ask if I want to do online banking. I have had enough trouble with scam artists that I no longer trust the banks in regards to bank transfers. I do not even have a credit card.

Having learned about error messages and notification logs on my computer last year, it was easy to spot a scam. I just wanted to know how far I could go with these guys trying to scam me before I had to stop going any further. They probably would have had remote access to my computer if I typed in the website that they told me to use. It would probably take me a year of committed learning to become competent in advanced computer programming. But, I do know enough about computers to know when you are getting scammed.

UnSubRocky wrote on May 20^th, 2021 at 9:42pm:


Good vid

The police weren't interested! I wonder why, scared of being called racist I suppose

Ol' mate decided to call back this morning and have another go. I told him that I had already reported him to Telstra. He acted like I needed to prove that I had lost money from my bank account. I told him that it was irrelevant if I lost money or not. He had admitted to wanting to steal money. I asked him to repeat the website he wanted me to look up. He gave me "any desk.com" to google and then navigate there. Hung up straight after writing down the details. Reported him, this time, to scamwatch.

Scamwatch   9 June 2021


Payment redirection scams cost Australian businesses $128 million in 2020

Dear radar subscriber,

Payment redirection

scams were the most financially damaging scams for Australian businesses in 2020 according to the ACCC’s latest Targeting Scams report. Combined losses reported to Scamwatch, other government agencies, banks and payment platforms totalled $128 million in 2020.

Reports to Scamwatch show that Australian businesses lost $18 million to scams in 2020, a 260 per cent increase on losses reported in 2019.

“Small and micro businesses made most of the reports to Scamwatch and experienced an increase in losses in 2020, although larger businesses reported the highest losses,” ACCC Deputy Chair Mick Keogh said.

Based on Scamwatch data alone, false billing scams were the most commonly reported scam by businesses and accounted for three quarters of total losses to businesses. Small and micro businesses accounted for almost 60 per cent of these false billing reports.

There are a range of false billing scams, but the most common type was payment redirection scams, also known as business email compromise (BEC) scams, with 1,300 reports and $14 million in losses. This is a substantial increase from the 900 reports and $5 million in losses reported in 2019.

In a payment redirection scam, scammers impersonate a business or its employees via email and request an upcoming payment be redirected to a fraudulent account.

Scamwatch also observed a new type of scam in 2020 that targeted farmers looking for a good deal on tractors and farm machinery. Scammers advertised equipment at prices well below market value, and told farmers that they couldn’t view the tractors prior to purchase due to government restrictions from the pandemic. Farmers made payments to secure these special deals, when in reality the equipment never existed. Farmers were conned out of $1.1 million in these scams.

“One thing we know about scammers is that they will take advantage of a crisis,” Mr Keogh said.