In a new age hi-tech world and with the cost of living putting a lot of households under pressure, it’s no surprise that the ACCC and banks are warning about a surge in scams, with many fraudsters using Artificial Intelligence or AI to fool desperate income earners out of their savings!

The Daily Telegraph has done the homework on this concerning trend and the likes of Westpac are supporting the ACCC’s warning that thieves are using AI to hoodwink cash-strapped people looking for ways to cope with rising inflation and interest rates.

Westpac says fake recruiters are offering jobs online that are only accessible via an upfront payment, and to date, women between the ages of 31 to 40 have been targeted.

Meanwhile, the ACCC’s data tracking says there has been a 5000% increase in job scam-related income losses compared to a year ago.

Westpac’s Peter King is warning people to be wary of unsolicited job offers, which means you must avoid clicking on links that go with a seemingly attractive work opportunity.

The Daily Tele’s John Rolfe reports that the ACCC is predicting that the total losses from scams this year will hit $4 billion, which would be double the figure for 2022!

The ACCC’s Targeting Scams Report released in April showed there was an 80% increase in scams in 2022 compared to 2021. It showed that investment scams were the highest loss category ($1.5 billion), followed by remote access scams ($229 million) and payment redirection scams ($224 million).

So, it’s timely that we now have the National Anti-Scam Centre, which was launched on 1 July 2023 and will build its information sharing capabilities over the next three years.

We bring together experts from government and the private sector to tackle harmful scams. It has been set up to coordinate government, law enforcement and the private sector to combat scams. It builds on the work of the ACCC’s Scamwatch service and is something that needs a lot more advertising to get the community savvy about the terrible tricks that online scammers are using to suck in unsuspecting people.

The rules to deal with the rising tide of online thieves should be:

1. Don’t answer online any request/demand for payments online.
2. Don’t click on any link from persons unknown.
3. Don’t believe a financial institution will make you click a link.
4. You’re better waiting on the telephone or going to the actual business than looking for a convenient online transaction that could be a creation of a scammer.
5. Finally, the catch all assessment of all offers made to you online goes like this: “If something seems too good be true, then it’s probably not true”.