As a matter of interest, even if I were in the habit of transferring money to my daughter then my bank would automatically pick up on the fact that the BSB+accountnumber is a new destination and my bank would then require 2FA in order to authorise the transaction (whereas for an existing destination, 2FA would not be required).
That in no way prevents this scam but it does provide an extra opportunity for me to realise that it’s a scam. (My “daughter” could have to explain not only why her mobile phone number has changed but also why her BSB+accountnumber has changed.)
It would seem very straight forward for the future.
There is no assurance of the origin of any digitally delivered message, SMS or email. Hence all content is no longer able to be trusted.
As a generalisation we’ve been progressively retrained to accept communication in digital form, and to accept the content, whether it’s a request to call a business (number included for your convenience), click on a marketing link, or go to a login, etc etc.
The “Hi Mum” and similar text scams are just another way the digital universe allows anonymity to present false information in an attempt to fool the recipient.
It appears the majority of the successful scams make victims of consumers and very small businesses. Larger ones can and do get caught out, known only when they admit to publicly.
All I can see is Australia Post in the solution. All going back to posted mail for billing etc, and paying bills over the post office counter, or cheques in the mail. The current scams only exist because of the near to zero cost of hitting potential targets, weaknesses in digital payment systems, and anonymity afforded by our digital universe, IMO. Over the counter banking might also be a great idea too?
I’m sure there are added health benefits in walking to the corner mail box or into the PO etc of how it used to be. Posties push bike no gears possibly a step too far for some.
What needs to change in the digital world to be assured the sender is who they say they are?
I’ve had this scam a couple of times.
The first one was from “your daughter” asking for $$$ to some other account. Just ask “What is your full name” and no further contact.
Another thing I do with my family for overseas travel is agree a “nonsense word” to be included in any such message asking for $$$. A word like wheelbarrow, coconut, elephant or similar will do provided that there is no chance it will be used in normal contacts.
While these are good strategies, the problem is that the people who do get caught by these scams have no strategy and don’t really consider the possibility that it might be a scam.
Received my first of this type of scam today, “Maddy” says her work phone died. Asked me to msg her here… with an SMS, so she clearly has access to a phone.
Pretending I thought I knew them, I asked “cuz Mads” why she can’t get her employer to give her a new one, but no response yet.
The aim is to see if I can get the scammer to give me a bank account to send money to, at which point I’ll contact the bank to tell them of the scammer they are facilitating.
With all respect @gordon it worries me when I hear someone say they’re going to ‘have fun’ with scammers. Unless we are one of them we can’t really have any idea of what can go on when even the smallest contact is made with them, keeping in mind that behind the scammer cold calling us there is a network of skilled thieves who are not easily thwarted from their criminal activities.
For your sake, I hope it really was a wrong number and that there’ll be no consequences from pretending you know them and interacting with them
Thanks Gaby, I am quite certain it was a genuine wrong number.
I do have experience with scammers, starting over 15 years ago, it’s mostly just wasting their time, so they aren’t scamming others who might not realise they are being scammed, and reporting them if there is anything useful gleaned. That was the case in 2007 when I reported a number of them to RSVP, who promptly removed their accounts.
I’m not going to tell anyone else what to do but my security policy is basically this. You may think that you are smarter than they are but that may or may not be the case - so ignoring completely, deleting and moving on is safest.
I get a lot of scam voice calls. I waste as much of their time as possible while maintaining a policy of strict silence i.e. say nothing, give them nothing, waste 5 seconds of their time because that’s 5 seconds when they are not scamming someone else, but they can always legitimately believe that their robocaller software simply did not work properly (which is why they are getting silence).
But then these days they could be recording your voice in order to feed it into an AI, which can then emulate you saying whatever they want you to say … and then hack into your account with the ATO.
(Yes, I understand that doesn’t apply with an attempted scam arriving via SMS.)
The very last thing a cold-caller or scammer wants is to get an answering service. What they want is a human to answer.
I find most of these calls, on the odd occasion I actually answer unknown calls, say nothing for a few seconds. They are waiting to see if a cheerful person answers with a ‘hello, gregr speaking’ or they get a ‘hello, you have reached gregr but cant take your call right now’ and then they just hang up.
So, I pickup and say nothing and await the caller to initiate the conversation. Which a legitimate caller will do. Because they are calling me, to talk to me.
I seem to have had a few of them this year - so even though the above article is 5 years old, this particular scam is still around. (Having said that, I don’t understand “Chinese” so I have no idea what the scammer’s message is in fact saying.)
Derivations of the scam. We had a friend from China visited us earlier in the year. During the stay she received a call indicating that the temporary phone number she was using (and had acquired in China before departing) was ‘illegal’ and had been used by criminals. If she didn’t pay XYZ the Australian Federal Police would be contacted and she would be arrested and deported. They provided the transfer details which was through WeChat and hung up. She was given a few minutes to transfer the money before they would call again. If she didn’t transfer the money they said she would be immediately arrested and deported. Fortunately she spoke to us immediately the call ended and when they called back she ignored the call. They were persistent and call several times, each leaving a more threatening messages.
It shook her up a lot as she didn’t expect to be contacted by scammers. The only thing we could work out is whoever sold the phone number and prepaid plan online before leaving China had given (sold) the number to scammers. After the call we got her to get a local SIM with a new number for her.
This really evil playing on the fear of arbitrary action by authorities. Those from China would be much more fearful than most of us as it is much more a real possibility at home. Something the scammer would know full well when they plot their schemes to target the vulnerable.
Which leads to a generalised test for attempted money scams that applies to almost any technology or method. It has two parts:
Does the content of the information and the presentation attempt to excite strong emotions such as fear and anxiety, passion or greed in you?
Are you being pressured to take action quickly before you can think about it or ask another opinion?
If it does both the chance that you are being presented with something that is not in your interests goes up greatly.
If you widen the scope to include those who want your opinion or vote and not just your money you can add hate to the list of emotions. Vote for me and I will deal with the ‘other’ whom you hate or fear. At the same time I will provoke as much fear and hate as I can to increase the effect. Sadly, it’s a sure winner in some places.
It comes down to getting you to feel something strongly and take action on it before you think too much.
I would add a third point to that: Scams only work because they contain enough truth to be believable.
Related to that is that scams will often pick up on something that is topical. (Scammers must be news junkies.)
So the scam takes advantage of the fact that many people are only paying 10% attention to the news (or to the world as a whole) - enough to know that XYZ is a real thing, but not enough to pick the flaws in the scammer’s story.
So, for example, fraudulent celebrity endorsements won’t work at all if no one has heard of the celebrity in question - and work best when the celebrity has been in the news recently. (I am using “celebrity” in its most general sense.)
Have you never seen a scam that only takes cash? You get them on street corners selling bargains with a quick smooth patter, shills in the crowd to ask the right question, agree with them or be the first to step forward and buy. It’s a system as old as the hills.
If you fall for it when you get the “bargain” home it is a cheap imitation or doesn’t work at all or has some other problem. For example Chanel perfume sells for $200 in the shop. Channel perfume sells for $30 on the street. Only cash. If you go back the next day they aren’t there. Who isn’t there any more? Nobody.
If you think the chance of getting your money back from a scammer is small if you pay by card it doesn’t compare to paying by cash where the chance is so close to zero it doesn’t matter.
