If you’ve got a phone, it’s likely you’ve been on the receiving end of more than a few scam text messages or calls.
Or you’ve probably heard about someone who has — possibly through a frustrated rant about how annoying the messages are.
So many of us are now at least a bit wary of scams and it appears scammers are using that to their advantage.
They’re posing as assistance organisations for scam victims or pretending to be an agency that can reclaim money lost to scammers to trick people into handing over their money.
Automatic trust
Kam-Fung Cheung, a lecturer at the University of New South Wales school of Information Systems and Technology Management, calls this tactic “authority exploitation”.
“People tend to trust and comply with requests when they believe they are dealing with a trustworthy source,” Dr Cheung says.
“This tactic — authority exploitation — leverages people’s trust in authority to make them less likely to question the authenticity of the communication.”
And they combine this with emotional manipulation.
“They might claim a security breach or an abnormal transaction on your account, impersonating trusted authorities like banks,” Dr Cheung says.
“This tactic plays on fear and urgency, pushing victims to act impulsively, such as providing the one-time passcode, without verifying the legitimacy of the communication.”
Here are some other examples of these tactics in action.
Pretending to be the good guys
The National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC) is a federal government organisation that works to protect people from scams.
It was launched last July and comes under the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) umbrella.
The centre says some criminals have been posing as NASC employees warning you about a scam — but it’s all a lie.
Here’s how the scam works:
- You get a call from someone saying they’re from the National Anti-Scam Centre.
- It seems real because they use a technique called spoofing to make it look like the call is coming from a legitimate number like a government agency or police.
- They say they a phone number registered in your name is being used as a scam in China.
- They offer to help you “clear your record” and ask you questions to confirm you’re not involved in the scam.
- They may threaten you or use this information to steal money from your bank account.
NASC says it’ll never ask you for your personal information.
It’ll also never ask for your financial details or ask you for money.
All written communications from the National Anti-Scam Centre will come from an ‘@accc.gov.au’ email address.
Pretending they can get your money back
There’s also scams that target scam victims a second time around.
This is where scammers pretend to be money recovery organisations that can help victims of fraud.
Here’s how that scam works:
Scammers contact a person via email, phone calls, text messages, social media or messaging app.
They’ll pretend to be a trustworthy person and might say they’re one of the following:
- government agency
- cyber security organisation
- fund recovery service
- lawyer
- consumer advocacy group
- charity
They’ll tell the victims they can get the money they lost to a scammer back —even offering to track down lost cryptocurrency.
They’ll ask for a fee for their services, which might be in the form of:
- an up-front fee
- a percentage of the lost funds
- a tax payment
Then they may ask for the victim’s details, pretending they’re verifying their identity or setting up a cryptocurrency wallet to transfer the recovered money into — they may even try to remotely access a device to get personal details.
Then they’ll use that information to steal money from a victim’s bank account.
Any money the victim transfers to pay for the fund-recovery services will likely be transferred to another account very quickly and not seen again.
The result can be someone being scammed twice.
How are they so convincing?
It’s not just name-dropping and scare tactics — scammers use a whole range of techniques to make their lies more believable.
“Regarding SMS, scammers can use the SMS Sender ID (alphatag) of trusted authorities and businesses such as Medicare to make the message “genuinely” sent from them,” Dr Cheung says.
“Regarding email, scammers can change their aliases and names appear as the emails sent from a trusted authority.”
Think twice about adds
These criminals don’t just cold call people — they can also take out ads, just like a legitimate business would.
But don’t be fooled into thinking a service is the real deal just because it has an ad.
ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe says there’s been reports of people duped by these dodgy schemes.
“Victims unknowingly proactively contacted criminals after seeing advertisements online,” Ms Lowe says.
“As part of our initial response, the National Anti-Scam Centre has referred two websites used in recovery scams for take-down action.
“One has been successfully taken down already.”
Can scam money be recovered?
“Legitimate scam investigation services are rarely able to recover money for scam victims,” an ACCC statement says.
“Unfortunately, most money stolen by criminals is transferred offshore very quickly making recovering of funds difficult.”
The ACCC says it has concerns about businesses offering investigation and recovery services for the following reasons:
- Only law enforcement authorities have power to seize and recover assets.
- It can be difficult to distinguish between a recovery business and scammers purporting to operate a recovery business.
- Many lack transparency about the services offered, the terms, the costs and their success rate.
- Significant up-front costs are charged for actions victims could otherwise undertake themselves for free, and which are unlikely to result in the recovery of funds.
So it doesn’t recommend victims engage with people who claim they can recover stolen money.
How can I protect myself against scammers?
Check identity of callers and the source of messages, Dr Cheung says
“If someone claims to be from a trusted authority, verify their identity before answering any questions.
“If you cannot verify the caller, hang up immediately.”
If someone’s claiming to be a loved one and it seems suss, Dr Cheung says you can confirm their identity by asking them about things only you and your loved on would know.
“If you receive an email from an unknown sender, always verify the domain before acting on its contents,” he says.
How do you report a scammer?
People are encouraged to report scams to the National Anti-Scam Centre’s Scamwatch website, regardless of whether they’ve lost money or not.
You can report cybercrimes to police through the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s online reporting portal.
If you’re concerned you’re a victim of identity theft, you can contact IDCARE, a not-for-profit charity that describes itself as Australia’s national identity and cyber support service.
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