Yet another entry in the “if it sounds too good to be true, it’s a con” files: the Accommodation Association of Australia is warning people to ignore telemarketing calls offering discount hotel dining packages. If you sign up, your credit card could get hit with thousands of dollars in unauthorised charges. More »
The world of scams changes rapidly. If you’ve experienced an attempted online or phone scam and are happy to share your story, the Australasian Consumer Fraud Task Force and the Australian Institute of Criminology are conducting a survey to identify prevalent scams in the local area. More »
Phishing scams — the ones that try to get you to provide private information by masquerading as a legitimate company — are often easy to detect if you have a sceptical approach, but you can get caught out if you let your guard down. Here’s how you can boost your phishing detection skills and protect yourself during those times when you’re not at full attention. More »
We’ve often advised hanging up on any business that calls you unprompted, and here’s another good reason to do so. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) has warned of a rise in scams where companies pretend they are representing a consumer’s existing phone or internet provider but then conning the customer into switching to a different service. More »
It’s the golden rule of the internet – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There’s currently a JB Hi-Fi scam doing the rounds on Facebook promising a free $200 gift card to the first 25,000 attendants of a special JB Hi-Fi event. The only thing you’re going to win by joining the event is compromised privacy and online security. More »
Online dating sites often get laughed at by people in any sort of relationship, but they’re big business — and a big source of scams. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has received more than 1600 reports of relationship scams this year, with a claimed value of $17 million. To try and reduce that, it has developed a draft code of conduct for sites to follow. More »
Seen an ad on eBay/in the Trading Post/in your local paper for an impossibly cheap mobile phone or tablet? The SCAMwatch service is reporting a rise in the number of scam ads for these products, where sellers advertise goods, collect payment and then never send them out. More »
We’ve repeatedly noticed the persistence of scam calls pretending to be technical support from Microsoft, Telstra and other large companies, and now there’s a seasonally appropriate version in the wild: callers demanding payment for a parcel due for delivery from Australia Post. As ever, it’s a con, and our advice is simple: just hang up. More »
We’ve warned readers repeatedly that calls claiming to be from Microsoft that have detected an issue with your PC are invariably a scam. That remains the case, but in an interesting twist, it turns out that one of the Indian companies involved in placing those scam calls was actually a Microsoft certified partner. More »
Australia’s banknotes incorporate a huge number of features that make them difficult to counterfeit, but that doesn’t mean criminals don’t have a crack at it now and then. Here are the ten most obvious signs that a note might be a fake. More »
