‘ Official’ crooks in fraud warning

FRAUDSTERS have scammed Australians out of more than $ 250,000 in the past six months as they posed as government departments and businesses.

The crooks are ripping off 65 people a day through elaborate “phishing” scams, which steal credit card information from Apple and Paypal users.

They also targeted welfare recipients with fake Centrelink emails and cold calls from men posing as Australian Taxation Office agents.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Acting chair Delia Rickard said elderly Australians were statistically the most vulnerable.

“The vast majority come either via the phone or email,” Ms Rickard said.

“The scammers will pretend to be representatives of wellknown organisations – like a bank, phone company or government department like Centrelink or the Australian Taxation Office – to give them the air of legitimacy.

“Scammers use phishing to trick their victims into giving out valuable personal information such as their bank account numbers, passwords, credit card numbers or even their online passwords for their PayPal, Apple or social media accounts. Any personal information you have is potentially valuable to a scammer and they will try to get it off you in a variety of ways.”

Security guard Ahsan Farid, 33, nearly fell victim to a scam when he opened an email purportedly from online payment service Paypal.

“It asked me to log into Paypal and update my details, so I followed the link, which opened a new window,” he said.

“I re- entered my card information and after about 40minutes I had an alert from Netbank that someone was trying to make a withdrawal.”

Mr Farid stopped any money from being stolen by calling the Commonwealth Bank and cancelling his debit card.

People concerned about phishing scams should visit www. scamwatch. gov. au to learn how to protect themselves.