WITH Christmas approaching, police are warning shoppers to be vigilant with their spending habits.
Detective Sergeant Gary Richards, of Frankston CIU, said scamming and identity theft was more prevalent and the methods used more sophisticated than ever before.
The popular payWave card, for transactions under $100, is the most common form of fraudulent theft. “You just need to wave your card over the reader for convenience,” he said. “But the card in the wrong hands can still be used.
“One investigation last week concerned a stolen card being used 87 times.”
Internet fraud is the second most common form of scamming involving transactions on online sales sites, such as eBay and Gumtree. “Without some sort of buyer protection, like PayPal or similar, the buyer is very vulnerable and often compromised,” Detective Richards said.
“Frankston CIU is investigating numerous types of crime where the property supposedly being sold does not exist. This often includes puppies and concert tickets.”
Internet fraud also covers bogus dating sites, where the online dating occurs and the prospective client is lured into forwarding large amounts of cash to foreign banking accounts on the promise of meeting up in Australia. Despite police assurances that they are being conned, gullible victims continue to pay tricksters in the naive belief their “love interest” is genuine.
Detective Richards said another commonly used scam was done over the phone. A caller purports to be from the Australian Taxation Office stating the victim owes a substantial sum and, if it is not paid straight away, they will be arrested. “These calls usually target elderly people and recently arrived migrants who have limited English and are unaware of Australian customs and ways,” he said.
Victims, who often have a genuine fear of being arrested, are led over the phone to their bank and made to withdraw money and deposit it into another account or a pre-paid Load-and-Go account. The perpetrators are aware of these accounts and extract the code for the account and withdraw the money.
“The rise of identity theft is now linked to these scams and is occurring on a weekly basis,” Detective Richards said. “Identity theft occurs when a person’s identification is stolen or misused to further other crime.
“It is not as simple as the theft of a driver’s licence – where a fraudulent licence is made using the stolen details – but it is still a common form of identity theft.”
Police say identity theft is more commonly being done over the internet. “Fraudsters are creating bogus companies, ranging from sales to financial lending,” Detective Richards said.
“Often the company is real but the web page that the victim has gone to is bogus. The victim will be directed to a phone contact or, simply, instructed to supply certain information to see if they ‘meet the criteria’.
“The victim supplies this information and, quite often, they are unsuccessful – but they have provided electronic copies of their particulars.”
Detectives recently investigated a case where a victim had gone online to the site of a bona fide finance company based interstate. She provided personal information and was asked to pay a borrower’s fee, which she did.
“Nothing more was heard,” Detective Richards said. “We identified that the finance company’s web page had been compromised. We traced the phone number used by the suspect to open the account, the online application, the post office box the account details were sent to, the phone number used to open the account and several other names used in this process.
“All of these people had had their identities stolen and used in this scam. All of them at some stage had been involved in online applications where they had to provide some identity. The investigation is still ongoing.”
Another sophisticated theft involved the redirection of mail from a victim’s address. The offenders used information within the mail to open up an account and, then, electronically transferred funds from the victim’s account to their own. The investigation is ongoing.
Detective Richards said merchants and private sales people were being fleeced by offenders offering counterfeit currency. “Some of the notes are of very good quality and can be hard to detect to the untrained eye,” he said. “We suggest policies be put in place by companies to cover this type of fraud, as there has been an influx of $100 notes into the marketplace.”
Detective Richards said the “sophistication of the fraudster is ever increasing”.
“If you are entering into a contract then get the contract checked by a solicitor,” he said.
