Money, money, money in all forms of cash, savings, loans or credit mean something to everyone.
It’s sad to report that a member of our Bundaberg community was scammed on September 19 while at home and answering a telephone call.
The scammers claimed to be from an accounts department for a telecommunications provider business. The scammers were convincing and made suggestions to the community member that their computer had been hacked, which at the time wasn’t the case at all.
Naturally you wouldn’t want this to occur, but the scammers asked questions and convinced the community member they wanted to stop people from getting in. The scammers were soon in – they gained remote access to the computer. Control was in the scammers keystrokes and by asking more questions they were able to access bank details and obtain passwords – right in front of the owners eyes.
As you can guess, the scammer changed their story. The scammer mentioned they would pay the community member a sum of money and request their assistance to help catch people from attempting to hack into their account and computer.
The scammer offender stated he would place an amount of money into the account where it could be withdrawn. Little did the community member know that this was actually their own money which the offender had transferred. The community member became a victim and followed further advice from the scammer offender.
The victim attended a postal business and obtained bank deposit forms. The victim has then followed the offenders instructions for an amount of money to be transferred to a person in Vietnam and provided personal details to ensure the transaction could occur.
Subsequently the transfer was successful and the money was gone.
Sadly, the above method continued again – more money gone.
Fortunately, the victim has met with a friend who realised a scam was in action and the matter was reported to police, despite the offender pleading with the victim not to report the matter to police.
I wish a happy ending could be shared, but sadly that’s not possible – the money is gone.
Please be aware of scammers and to find out more information, consider subscribing to SCAMWATCH here and ACORN here.
There is no need for unknown people to be given remote access to your computer, so again, please be aware of scammers and what access they may convince you to provide.
Consider taking your computer to a respected computer business who may conduct repairs and clean-up services.
For more policing information, please visit here.
Anyone with information which could assist with this matter should contact Crime Stoppers anonymously via 1800 333 000 or crimestoppers.com.au 24hrs a day.
Crime Stoppers is a registered charity and community volunteer organisation working in partnership with the Queensland Police Service.
For all non-urgent police reporting or general police inquiries contact Policelink on 131 444 or Policelink.qld.gov.au 24hrs a day.