Crooks posing as ATO

Racket has already cost unlucky Aussies $1.5m

January to May this year and typically expect further increases during the tax time period,” Australian Taxation Office assistant commissioner Kath Anderson said.

She said 48,084 scams were reported to the Australian Taxation Office between July and October last year, with one unlucky person losing $900,000 to a scammer.

“Already this year, the Australian 2018 COMMONWEALTH GAMES HOST CITY Taxation Office has registered over 17,067 scam reports. Of these, 113 Australians handed over $1.5 million to fraudsters with about 2500 providing some form of personal information, including tax file numbers,” Ms Anderson said.

She said fraudsters often found genuine Australian Taxation Office phone numbers from the group’s website and projected these numbers in their caller identification in an attempt to legitimise calls.

Ms Anderson said the Australian Taxation Office always called from a private number, meaning all of these calls were scams.

“People should be wary of emails, phone calls and SMS during tax time that claim to be from the Australian Taxation Office. If you’re ever unsure about whether a call, text message or email is genuine, call us,” she said.

The Australian Taxation Office said you should only share personal details with people you trust, change your computer and phone passwords regularly, don’t reply to text messages or emails with personal or financial information and be cautious if someone asks for such details.