Services Australia, 9 January 2023:
More and more scammers are creating social media profiles impersonating us and other government agencies.
Scammers will set up accounts to look like Services Australia, myGov, Medicare, Centrelink or even our employees. These accounts will look convincing, but will have little differences in the name or the spelling of the username.
These accounts will often message you saying they can help you, but they’re really trying to steal your information.
How to tell if it’s a scam
We will never ask you to engage via direct message or private chat on social media. These aren’t secure ways to share information.
We won’t ask you to share personal information like your customer reference number (CRN), address, phone number or email address via social media.
We have a list of our verified social media accounts on our website. If the account isn’t on that list, then it isn’t us.
A query on Twitter......
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Clarence Valley Independent, 18 January 2023:
A dangerous new scam circulating through emails offering recipients ‘outstanding refunds’ has prompted a warning from the Australian government and Scamwatch.
Email security software company MailGuard issued the alert after intercepting emails posing as official emails from government agency myGov.
With an enticing subject line reading ‘You have an outstanding refund from myGov’ the emails encourage recipients to read further.
Despite being sent from what appears to be myGov, with an Australian Government logo, the website address refund@my.gov.au is the first sign this is a scam, as it is clearly different to the official site https://my.gov.au/ .
The body of the email is impersonalised, addressed to Dear Customer, informing them they have a refund of $640.98 available from myGov.
A link to accept the payment online then takes the user to a fake login page, featuring Australian Government branding to seem authentic, where they are prompted to enter their username and password.
There the user is asked to provide their full name, address, phone number, credit card information and CVV number.
MailGuard said the details would likely be used by cybercriminals.
“These details will again be stolen by the criminal and will likely be used for their personal financial gain or sold on the dark web,” MailGuard said in a statement.
“Refund scams are a cruel type of attack that target vulnerable individuals who could use the money promised.
“Instead, they risk financial and identity fraud.”….
Anyone who receives the suspicious email should delete it immediately without opening any suspicious links.
BACKGROUND
ABC News, 7 November 2022:
Between January and September this year, Australians lost $424.8 million to scammers (that's more than $47 million a month).
It signifies a 90 per cent increase in losses compared to the same period last year.
But those figures are likely only the tip of the iceberg, with just 13 per cent of victims reporting crimes to Scamwatch.
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