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“These scammers may be offering help, payments, or claim they’re collecting donations for disaster-affected communities,” Services Australia alarmed citizens.
Not all help that comes along our way is always genuine. Take, for example, Australia’s victims of natural disasters and floods. Unfortunately, scammers plan to rub more salt in the wound as they pretend to be a credible disaster-relief agency.
Services Australia warned citizens, “When offering you ‘help,’ the scammers will often ask for your personal information. This can include asking for your bank details, passwords, or credit card details. They may ask you this directly or get this information by asking you to register your details online.”
“We’ll never ask you to share personal information with us on social media, and we never ask you to pay for our assistance.”
People who are devastated and emotionally unstable are frequently the targets of shady and opportunist criminals. Scammers would directly message the victims and comment on live chats.
Sadly, fraudsters preying on Australians impacted by the calamity is nothing new. When scammers attempted to rort the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment claims and the Pandemic Leave Disaster Payments back in August of last year, $22 million, according to Minister for Government Services Bill Shorten, was prevented from going to them.
“It’s disappointing that people intentionally try to defraud payments that are being delivered to people who genuinely need support,” Shorten mentioned at the time.
An ‘extremely low act’ as the Minister for Emergency Services Murray Watt would describe the intentional scamming of victims.
“It’s un-Australian, and they should be ashamed of themselves,” Watt said.
“The government is committed to ensuring communities with a legitimate need are supported as quickly as possible, but the message is clear, if you attempt to claim money you aren’t entitled to, you should expect to be caught.”
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