Scams Awareness Week
- Robert Salier
- Aug 27, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: May 12
ACMA is asking people "If you’ve identified or encountered a scam, report it to www.scamwatch.gov.au, and then tell someone – a friend, family, colleague or someone in your social circle. By sharing your story, you can help to prevent someone else from having their money or personal information taken by a scammer.”
In just the first six months of this year the Australian Government ScamWatch received 144,106 reported scams with reported losses being $134,470,478. That’s over 780 scams and $735,000 per day!
I receive scam emails and text messages almost every day, but I will share a more sophisticated example…
In December 2021 I received an email from the CEO of the small company I was working for at the time, or at least it appeared to be from him, but was actually from a scammer. The email said, “Hi Robert”, and then went on to say that he wanted to give some customers an iTunes gift card as a festive season gift. As he was in meetings all day, could I please go out and purchase some gift cards, and send the activation codes from those cards to him.
I was immediately suspicious. Firstly, I thought it was an odd request. Secondly, the email address was @gmail.com. Rather than respond to the email, I messaged the CEO to check whether he had actually sent it. As expected, he confirmed that he had not. I then informed our IT person, who blocked the email and reported the scam to scamwatch.com.au.
Whilst this was a fairly crude scam attempt, every year there are many victims of more savvy targeted phishing attempts where a criminal has spent more time researching their targets on LinkedIn, Facebook, or what-ever, and more time crafting a message that sounds authentic and that the target victim is likely to fall for. Be vigilant!
