The new financial year always provides fertile ground for scammers. The most common scam we see this time of year is ATO-related scams. Emails promising tax refunds, or threatening action on fictional ATO debts are going to increase in frequency now. And as always, our advice is the same.
Check the sender, don’t click on any links, and if in doubt – independently verify. That means close the email (or text message) and then go log into your MyGov or call the ATO from the number on their website and see if its real.
Company annual review time also provides a big oppotunity for scammers posing as renewal services for ASIC. You do not need to pay a third party to renew your company registration. You should only pay the invoice that is issued directly by ASIC.
And then there’s Centrelink…
This time of year isn’t necessarily associated with Centrelink scams, but this year is a little different. On 23rd June the Australian Federal Court approved a new $475M settlement for victims of the “robodebt” scheme. So, we expect to see a whole lot more Centrelink-related scam activity, especially with promises of receiving a share of the lawsuit’s payout.
While the message content may vary, the advice is exactly the same.
Don’t click any links, and independently verify if the message is authentic.
That means don’t call any of the numbers in the email / message either! (They are usually fake and part of the scam.)
And let’s not forget Stripe!
Scammers often contact victims with offers of work and a recent trend is that they ask them to sign up for a Stripe account.
Why?
The objectives of these scams are always the same. Whether it’s money laundering, chargebacks or some other abuse of the payment mechanics to defraud you. I’ve seen these with all sorts of services like Wise, Paypal etc. but apparently now Stripe is the flavour of the month.
Regardless of the service though, if anyone approaches you unsolicited, offering work, goods or services and the only way “they can pay you” is if you sign up with a new financial service or app, in crypto etc it’s a scam pretty much 100% of the time.
Block them and move on.
It’s human nature to want to believe these things.
Just remember, if it looks too good to be true – it usually is!
