The Australian Communications and Media Authority has revealed the top five phone scams currently being reported in Australia and even though they are working with the Telecommunications industry to block these types of calls - scammers are still getting through.
Top 5 scam calls
- Amazon impersonation: Scam calls about an issue with your Amazon account. They claim funds will be taken from your account if you do not act immediately by providing personal information.
- Banking/finance impersonation: Scam calls, emails and SMS claiming suspicious activity, unauthorised debits, or that your account has been suspended. They request personal details to verify your identity.
- NBN impersonation: Scam callers posing as someone from technical support. They claim there is a fault with your internet to get access to your computer and personal information.
- Telstra impersonation: Similar to the NBN scam. Callers pose as Telstra technical support and claim you have issues with your service or internet to access your computer and personal information.
- eBay impersonation: Scammers use a recorded message to claim you have made a purchase that requires a charge to your account. This is to get you to provide to personal information.
How to avoid scams
- Do not provide your personal information to an unsolicited caller or sender of a message.
- Do not open links in any unsolicited messages you receive.
- If the brand has an app you can use instead of receiving messages, consider whether this will work for you. Messages you receive via the app are much more likely to be legitimate.
- Even if a message slips into a legitimate message stream on your phone, double-check it’s from the brand concerned.
- If in doubt, always contact the business via their publicly available contact details (or the details on your regular bill or transaction record) rather than the details provided by the caller or in a message.
Learn more about ‘how to spot a scam’ – on the Scamwatch .
Scammers target everyone. Learn more about how to protect yourself from phone scams on the ACMA .
Reviewed 30 November 2022