A brand new “insidious” rip-off is duping sincere Australian taxpayers out of money and their private info on-line.
Fraudsters are impersonating the Australian Tax Office on Twitter, Facebook and different social media platforms.
The rip-off operates by scanning public conversations on social media, the place taxpayers ask questions of – or make complaints about – the ATO.
The scammers then hijack the dialog utilizing a pretend ATO profile, contacting the unique poster immediately with a proposal to assist and after incomes their belief, asking them to click on on a hyperlink or present private particulars.
Assistant Treasurer and Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones mentioned group consciousness was one of the best defence, and urged taxpayers to watch out with who they work together with on-line.
“A pretty good sign (of it being a scam account is) if they’ve joined recently,” he instructed ABC Radio.
“The tax office has had a social media presence for almost as long as Facebook has existed, for example. If somebody’s pretending to be the tax office and they only joined in October last year, that’s a pretty good indication that it’s a fake.
“And individual tax office employees won’t use a Facebook profile to contact somebody.
“In fact, no government agency contacts and asks for information over social media. They’ll use a secure portal to do all of that and they’ll never ask you to directly upload your information by clicking a link.”
Mr Jones mentioned the ATO is working with social media platforms and different authorities businesses to take away these “damaging interactions”.
