Scams and Fraud

Romance

Dating and Romance scams are conducted by creating profiles on legitimate websites such as dating apps or Facebook and then entering into relationships with people to request money over time from as short as days to many years.

Scammers will commonly say they are in a far away location and have some excuse why they are unable to meet such as because of military service, or taking care of a relative. They ask for money for all kinds of reasons, such as to book flights to see their victim, medical care, or to introduce the victim to a great financial opportunity.

Investment

Investment scams come in many different forms – property, shares, cryptocurrency are just a few of them. They distribute the scams through many different methods, whether approaching people as a friend of a friend, an advertisement with fake celebrity endorsements or even a direct call out of the blue with a great investment opportunity.

Individuals are then tricked into transferring money into a trading platform and shown fake information about how much money they are making, only to be asked to give money to withdraw their funds.

Be wary of investment opportunities coming from companies based overseas, that don’t hold an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), and aren’t members of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). Australian investments are highly regulated for the safety of everyday people, and not ticking these boxes should be a big red flag.

Phishing

Phishing is a type of scam designed to trick you into providing your information. This can take many forms, such as an email that may pretend to be from your gas company saying you have an overdue bill and that you must click the link to pay it urgently, to a text message saying you have tolls to be paid.

The trick with these messages is that they will usually want you to provide information or click a link that isn’t quite right – by hovering your cursor over a link, your computer will show you the address it is trying to send you to, which you will find will have subtle differences to a real link, like www.move-bank.com instead of www.movebank.com.au.

To protect their customers, most businesses no longer send emails with a link to enter your details, instead they will direct you to log in directly via their website.

Marketplace

With the rise of selling things on Gumtree and Facebook marketplace, so too have scammers moved into this space.

Common scams in this space is either for sellers demanding payment and then not providing goods, or buyers who might ask the seller to register for a service such as PayPal or PayID and then send a fake notification that they need to pay an extra amount to “activate” the payment method.

Charity/Medical

Scammers are also known to try and tug the heart strings of their victims, by posing as a fake charity raising money for a good cause or contacting you saying that they can provide answers to a medical problem such as having a miracle cure for an illness, weight loss trick or access to an online pharmacy.

Threat/Penalty

Last but not least, scammers will often send a notice saying that there is an overdue fee, bill or tax debt that will incur substantial interest, penalties or other consequences like jail time.

In extreme cases, these can even be threats to your person or your family, such as pretending to be a family member who has been abducted by a drug dealer.

These scams work by making the victim scared and causing them to take action without thinking, whether that is clicking a link to look at a bill or send money to another account.

Most importantly, the first step is to take action. It is entirely normal to be upset of feel ashamed if you are the victim of a scam, but it is important to remember that no one is immune to fraudsters and scammers.

If you have sent money or shared your banking details with a scammer, contact your financial institution immediately. We can increase the monitoring on your MOVE Bank account and can attempt to stop or recall transactions made on your account.

The next steps are damage control – looking at what information was compromised and taking steps to protect yourself.

A few examples of actions that could be taken include:

• Reviewing your passwords and changing any that were compromised

• Updating your anti-virus software and scanning your computer, or even having a professional perform a clean of your device

• Placing a temporary hold on your credit report

• Contacting IDCARE via their website or call 1800 595 160 if you think you may be a victim of identify theft

Victims of a scam are also significantly more likely to become scam targets in the future, such as offers to recover lost funds. Be wary of potential scams especially in the near future.

Whilst we do contact our members from time to time, we would never ask you to provide us with your account details.

Scammers have been known to pretend to be banks, or even from a bank’s fraud team to catch people off guard and trick them into thinking it is safe.

If you’re unsure, the safest thing to do is to contact us directly through secure messaging via Internet Banking or phone us on 1300 362 216 and we can confirm if the message was legitimate.

If you have sent money or given away account details as part of a scam, you should contact your financial institution as soon as you become aware of the problem. We can increase the monitoring on your MOVE Bank account and can attempt to stop or recall transactions made on your account.

Unfortunately, the sad reality when it comes to scams is that if a payment has been authorised to be sent to a third party, scammers will usually move money out of the account immediately to prevent funds from being recovered.

• Does it sound too good to be true?

• Was I expecting to be contacted or has this come from nowhere?

• Does anything seem strange, like am I being contacted from a different

• Do they need money to be sent urgently?

• Do they want me to click a link or provide my information?

• Is there a way I can contact them using the “normal” method (for example calling the tax office on their ordinary number)