A local man has received two scam attempts recently, underlining a warning from the ACCC’s Scamwatch that scammers target older Australians. The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has encouraged the community to keep an eye on aged friends and elders who may not understand the latest technology.
According to the ACCC’s annual Targeting Scams report released this week, ‘Australians who are older, Indigenous or have disability reported record losses in 2018.’ People inexperienced with the internet are more likely to fall prey to things younger or more experienced folk might immediately recognise as dodgy.
‘Australians aged over 65 submitted over 26,400 reports to Scamwatch in 2018, with losses of over $21.4 million’, according to the ACCC.
The first scam attempt the local man received was from a ‘Lifetime Movie Club’ app saying he had signed up for a $50.00 a month app. All he had to do to unsubscribe was to click on the link attached.
The second one claimed that (in very poor English) his phone had been hacked while he was viewing adult websites, and unless he coughed up some Bitcoin the photos of him viewing the sites will be emailed to everyone in his email address book.
These are common scams but according to the ACCC people fall for them all the time. If you get an email like this you should block the sender, do not reply to them and delete the email.
Another strategy is to remind your older friends that if they are not sure about anything they are sent via email or phone, to check with someone who might have a better understanding of the technology.
