SCAMBULLETIN April.pdf - Crandon for Coomera

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- IN CONFIDENCE - LOTTERY AND SWEEPSTAKES SCAM Lottery scams will often use the name of legitimate overseas lotteries, so that if the victim researches the company, the scam will seem authentic. The scam involves the victim – often a senior citizen - receiving a letter, email or telephone call from someone pretending to be with the Reader’s Digest, Publisher’s Clearing House etc or a foreign lottery/sweepstakes company. They advise the victim that they have won millions of dollars or fantastic prizes – in a competition which they did not enter! The victim is advised to act quickly or risk missing out, and to keep the details confidential to ‘maintain security’. [This is to prevent the victim from seeking further information or advice from independent sources.] The scammer advises the victim that they first must wire hundreds or even thousands of dollars back to the scammers, to cover taxes or some other bogus fee, before the ‘winnings’ can be released. The victim sends the money, but the prize never arrives. An Australian consumer received an email notifying them of a multi-million dollar lottery win. While they were initially sceptical, as they had not bought a lottery ticket, they conducted some research and found that the lottery was the same name as a legitimate foreign lottery and the bank where the winnings were supposedly being held was a legitimate overseas financial institution. Over a series of months, the victim paid almost $60 000 for various transfer fees, taxes and certificates but never received the expected winnings. SUGGESTED RESPONSE TO INQUIRIES • Common sense is the best defence – if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. • It is impossible to win a lottery if you haven’t bought a ticket from an authorised distributor. • Don’t play a foreign lottery. • Never reply to a spam email, even if it is to unsubscribe • Never call a telephone number that you see in a spam email • Do not click on any links or open any files in a spam email • If you are asked to send money via wire transfer (e.g. Western Union Money Transfer), then alarm bells should ring! The one constant in these scams is that money needs to be wired to the scammers somewhere in the world. • Keep in mind that wiring money is like sending cash; once it’s gone, you can’t get it back. • Report this type of scam via the SCAMwatch “report a scam” page at www.scamwatch.gov.au or by calling 1300 795 995
- IN CONFIDENCE - OVER-PAYMENT SCAMS Over-Payment scams typically target small business owners, landlords or individuals with rooms to rent and sellers on classifieds or sites like Gumtree, etc. The scammers overpay the amount for the services or products and then ask the victim to wire the extra amount back to them or to another fraudulent entity. The scammers will create a reason for the overpayment, such as the extra money was to cover agent fees for the property lease or additional shipping costs to transport the item to a foreign country. The scammer may even state that he/she made a mistake when writing the cheque. The scammer will request that the excess amount be refunded to him/her and that this occurs through a wire transfer (such as Western Union Money Transfer) or an online banking transfer. The scammer will emphasize urgency for this transfer, hopeful that it will occur before the victim discovers that the cheque has bounced. Ultimately though, the cheque is counterfeit and the victim loses the money wired back to the scammers. SUGGESTED RESPONSE TO INQUIRIES • Use common sense, if you have been sent a cheque for more money than you agree on DO NOT repay the difference before the cheque has been cleared by your bank. • Even if the excuse sounds realistic, be wary of requests to refund the excess money by wire transfer or internet banking. • Don’t agree to deposit a cheque for someone you don’t know, and then wire the ‘overpayment’ back • Share your story with friends, family and colleagues to help protect them from this sort of scam • Report this type of scam via the SCAMwatch “report a scam” page at www.scamwatch.gov.au or by calling 1300 795 995 COMPUTER REPAIR SCAM Scammers made wide-ranging scam telephone calls to victims to trick them into believing that their computer was infected with a virus or was sending out error messages. Scammers claim to represent Microsoft or other genuine service providers and ask for remote access to scan the victim’s computer for the [non-existent] virus. The scammers pretend to run scans and then tried to convince their victims to buy anti-virus software, either through a one off payment or an ongoing subscription. While this approach may seem to be more of a telemarketing scam – as the scammer tries to sell an unnecessary product – it has strong elements of computer hacking because the scammers gain remote access to their victim’s computer. In some instances, the scammers also ask the unsuspecting victim to follow a link to a website. In doing so, some victims unsuspectingly load a virus onto their computer. The scammers are quite aggressive in their approach. They usually inform the customer that they have been recommended by their ISP and they work alongside them to provide support by means of remote access. They attempt to use ‘scare tactics’ in an attempt to get victims to sign up for the ‘computer repair’ service with statements along the line of they already know that the users computer is infected with malware and would be damaged beyond repair unless the user signs up and allows them to ‘fix’ the non-existent problem.
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