Scamming is on the rise including in our university community and the level of sophistication means the scams are getting harder to detect and they prey on people’s trust, vulnerability, and stress levels.
Don’t think it will never happen to me, scammers are coming up with new ways to attack every day.
One of the latest scams targeting students is promising commission for reviews or orders made via what looks like a legitimate business with logo and branding. They promote it as a type of shared investment scheme where you must deposit monies to get your commission. The monies demanded slowly rise with convincing manipulation and the transactions are done via cryptocurrency so hard to trace and get monies back.
Scammers:
- Look and sound real
- Catch you by surprise
- Come up with believable stories
- Try to pressure you into taking action
Common Types of Scams
If it is too good to be true, beware!
- Student Fee Scams – offering to pay international students’ tuition fees directly to the University on behalf of a student. Warning: only pay fees direct to your university.
- Bank Impersonation – making a call appear to come from the bank’s phone number or sending a text message that appears in the same conversation thread as a genuine bank message.
- Accommodation – often the rent is improbably low and they ask for some payment upfront.
- Employment or Job Offers – people are told that a job is available for them via social media e.g. What’s App, that is either very well paid (thousands of dollars a week!) or very convenient (work from home). Another common employment scam includes offering commission for reviews and making orders online.
- Investment or moneymaking – most common scam with $292 million lost in 2022.
- Fake government agency – This might include robo calls from immigration or a tax office.
- Fake technician – indicate something is wrong with your internet to get your details.
- Romance’ – very common and prey on people’s vulnerability and can go on for a while.
- Some ads on social media – some ads on places like eBay, Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree might list items like laptops or instruments ‘for sale’ but are fake scam accounts. View these tips on how to stay safe using Facebook Marketplace
Top Tips for Avoiding Scams
Stop
- take your time before giving money or providing personal information
- trust your instincts, if something doesn’t feel right it probably isn’t and
- scammers will offer to help you verify who you are to get your personal information and pretend they are from a legitimate organisation.
Think
- ask yourself if the message or call could be fake?
- ask a trusted friend or family member what they would do
- watch out for emails or text messages that look legitimate with a slight variation and don’t click on link or respond without checking if authentic first
- do not use the number they give you to ring back but check the number to ring on an official website of the government or business or through secure apps
- If you are not sure say no, hang up or delete.
Protect
- enable two-factor authentication and change passwords regularly
- act quickly if something feels wrong
- contact your bank immediately if you lose money or have provided some personal account information or if you notice some unusual activity on your cards or accounts
- contact IDCARE who can provide the best advice and support on how to respond to data breaches, scams, identity theft and cyber security concerns
- report a cybercrime or scam to the Australian Cyber Security Centre or if need immediate support contact the police
- if you want to check on latest scams or warn others about a scam occurring contact Scamwatch who collect data and information about scams to prevent them from happening in the future.
Support
If you have been scammed and have reported it to your banks and the Australian Cyber Security Centre, there is further support available within the University including Financial Counselling, Legal Service and from Student Wellbeing Connect.