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.
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.
Every year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) takes part in a global sweep to identify online scams. The focus for the 2011 sweep is fake government sites: scams which try and charge consumers for services they can get free from official government providers.
Scam emails are distressingly common, but scams that use old-fashioned snail mail still proliferate. In one example currently active in Victoria, Queensland, SA and NT, travel-themed scratch cards are used to try and con people out of their money.
We’ve written on multiple occasions about the importance of ignoring scammers who ring claiming to be from Microsoft support and then try and con people into installing malware onto their machines and paying for fake “support”. That tactic remains common, but there’s a new local twist: some of the scammers are now claiming to be from Telstra or BigPond.
Chances are your spam filter is overloaded with dubious types “congratulating” you on being listed in their allegedly prestigious new business directory — a common trap designed to con you into paying a bill for ending up in the directory. Tracking down the perpetrators of that kind of scam can be tricky, especially if they operate overseas, but the ACCC has successfuly prosecuted a Spanish company which bombarded small businesses with faux invoices and then aggressively pursued payments.
Dodgy phishing emails and dubious phone calls telling you that you have just scored a tax refund are, sadly, a fact of life. But they are particularly prevalent in the run-up to the end of the financial year, so don’t get tricked into responding to one.
It’s National Consumer Fraud Week, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has marked the occasion by releasing its annual statistics on the numbers of scams reported to it in 2010. The total number? 42,000, which is more than double the 2009 figure of 20,000.
Online charlatans don’t get taken to task anywhere often enough for our liking, so it’s always pleasing to see a seemingly dodgy operator face the music. The ACCC is suing a Western Australian woman who has run numerous sites claiming that she can cure cancer.
