Another scam to be wary of.
I received a phone call today threatening my arrest. The message is: : “…is getting filed under your name. The moment you receive this message I want you to get back to me on my department division number 390135992. I repeat 390135992. Now if we don’t hear from you we have to issue arrest warrant under your name and and get you arrested. So get back to me as soon as possible. Thank you.”
It is a computer-generated voice - I took this recording of the message.
These scams have been around for a while…
https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/site-search/Arrest
It is worth searching scamwatch.gov.au, if you get a call like this to see if it legitimate.
Thanks phb.
I realise these scams are well known in some circles but am socialising the information as much as possible to increase awareness.
I took a recording of the call and sent it to ScamWatch.
I have noticed a lot of scam calls coming through on my landline with a 07 or interstate prefix. The calls seem to originate from the Philippines. Being in Perth and not having any eastern states contacts, I usually ignore them or sometimes answer in Polish. Now that causes total confusion and a desperate plea for ‘someone who speaks English’. Being retired it does offer some entertainment. I do notice I’m not getting so many calls lately.
Maybe their message is too long (>10s), but they didn’t leave me a callback number 
It went straight to voice to text as it was a private number …
The latest ones I have been receiving are for a car accident I was involved in. And an angry one form the Taxation Office. Bunch of clowns but obviously people do fall for them.
… and sadly that is the key - people do take them seriously, which indicates there is still such a thing as (relatively blind) trust. Of course, these kind of automated mass-hit scams will eliminate that over time …
If everyone ignored them, the calls would dry up. They only call as they know a very small proportion of the population gets sucked in thinking they are real.
I wonder if scams like this explain the ‘phone rings and they hang up’ phenomenon. This sort of message is probably going to fall flat on a person-to-person call, so they need an answering machine or voicemail response.
‘bad people’ including some politicians are full on working to eliminate trust.
In the USA people are urged to call 911 to verify if the police car trying to pull them over is bona fide or not, because of the imposters who will rob, assault, or even kill. It is further eroding their trust in police through that second dimension, not as if some of the police don’t have enough of a problem.
As for pollies, when they purposefully destroy trust in everything it attracts fascist/extremist/conspiracy loving mentalities to their fold.
These are dark times.
The US appears to be taking some action but as with computer viruses, the scammers are usually a half step or more ahead of the defence.
Hope there is no back door for political parties if they can work out how to do it! 
Oooops! 
I’m assuming that our political parties would legislate accordingly?
… the Weltschmerz is pervasive …
The scammers’ callerID is coming up as 08 9467 4391 today delivering an automated recorded robo call.
O M G! … They are onto me! I’ve apparently committed a “federal offence” and supposedly this is the 2nd time they (as in female voice robocaller) have tried to contact me, I have to immediately call 08 72000286 to avoid arrest.
Strangely, the phone did not ring, and there is no history of the call, I just got a message saying I had a voicemail message.
Nice knowing you @gordon. Thanks for all the help you have given the forum over the past 2+ years.
I hear that food on the inside has improved in the past few years. Has high iron content (just in case one is anaemic) but unfortunately can contain hormones (even if hormone free meat is used in the recipe).
These clowns are persistent, they tried it again yesterday. It’s really unfortunate that its a robocall, otherwise they might regret calling me, due to ear damage!
There is a free service available (Reverse Australia) that often has data on these return-call scams. Both of the numbers mentioned here come up as multiple notifications of tax scam.
As far as I can tell they are legit. But have a look and satisfy yourself. The data may not be 100% as much it comes from the public but it looks useful to me. I would be surprised to see too many false positives.
It is amazing in these days when our federal government seeks powers to decrypt messages and move capitals of foreign countries, they don’t take a little more effort to respond to these scammers. 
We are long past relying on the diligence of the average Australian to win the battle!
