Local Transport business operator Cirsten Leditschke is keen to alert people to SCAMS in the district as part of her role as Eudunda Community, Business and Tourism (ECBaT) Chairperson.
Cirsten is concerned about SCAMS hitting our local community and wished to relate her latest experience in the hope that people will realise it is happening locally too,
“On the whole virus situation, I had a scam email today, it supposedly came from the Australian Federal Police, it was in the form of an infringement notice and you had to click on the link to view details of supposed incident. Thankfully my computer security wouldn’t allow me to open the link.
“I called the AFP and they told me it’s a scam coming out of Russia it would have loaded my computer with some nice viruses they told me and they weren’t sure if they would be able to gain access to banking details as well if I had opened it.
[pullquote]Thankfully my computer security wouldn’t allow me to open the link.[/pullquote]
“It just happens to be ‘National Consumer Fraud Week’ from the 18th to 24th May 2015 and we would like to alert people to be careful and follow their slogan of ‘Get smarter with your data.’
Local Computer Service Business owner, Peter Herriman said,
“It is of great concern at the moment seeing the number of computers coming in that have been compromised in various ways. The SCAMMERS try all sorts of tricks to gain your confidence and some are damn good at it”.
“What can we say? The old adage about – ‘if it sounds too good to be true it probably is’ is only part of your defense. The scammers are reaching out by phone and some are very good at selling the scam. They may sound local, they may try to convince you that your computer has problems, your bank details are wrong, you incurred a fine and all sorts.
“Best defence is to ‘take s step back from their words or the email’ – think! Generally the departments concerned will not contact you this way!
Try and get their contact details (they most likely have plenty of excuses not to give it), but if they do then make an excuse to leave and that you have to hang up.
Now you have time to research for the scam, and to contact the department directly to see if they would contact you like this, of course – it could be real – and now that you have the real department on the phone they should know why they are contacting you by phone. It may take up your time – but it will be the safest thing to do.”
The SCAM WATCH website webpage shows the 2015 National Consumer Fraud Week – Get smarter with your data
The Scam Watch website is always a good place to start researching if you are unsure if you have a scammer trying to work on you,
You can read about more local experiences at the Web South article here.