A new campaign for Scams Awareness Week urges Canberrans to take a moment to “Stop and Check: Is This for Real?”.
Minister for Justice and Consumer Affairs, Shane Rattenbury said scammers might call or email you and pretend to be from a Government Agency or a well-known, trusted business.
“They then use threats to pressure or scare you into giving them your money or personal information,” Mr Rattenbury said.
“The ACCC’s [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] Scamwatch received almost 33,000 reports of these scams in 2017.”
He said more than $4.7 million was reported lost and more than 2,800 people gave their personal information to these scammers.
Mr Rattenbury said Canberrans lost approximately $50,000 to what was known as a “remote access scam”.
“A caller, often pretending to be from a large telecommunications or computer company, such as Telstra, the NBN or Microsoft, will try to convince you that you have a computer or internet problem and that you need to buy new software to fix the problem,” he said.
“The scammer may try to talk you into buying unnecessary software or a service to ‘fix’ the computer, or they may ask you for your personal details and your bank or credit card details.”
Mr Rattenbury said people should ask themselves whether the person or business that contacted them out of the blue was who they said they were; they should verify the identity of the contact through an independent source; and they should never send money or give away bank or credit card details.
“Know that a Government Agency or trusted business will never ask you to pay them with gift or store cards, iTunes cards, wire transfers or bitcoin,” the Minister said.
“Never give anyone remote access to your computer if they’ve contacted you out of the blue — whether through a phone call, pop-up window or email.”
