ATO email scam
Another scam email that landed in my inbox claimed to be from the Australian Taxation Office.
Purporting to be from the email address refund@ato.com.au it said I was entitled to a $250 refund on my Visa or Mastercard.
I knew it was fraudulent immediately, of course. The ATO doesn’t have my Yahoo! address, doesn’t communicate by unsolicited email and doesn’t give refunds on credit cards.
Also, I had seen a media release from the Tax Office on a different but related scam.
The Tax Office is warning people to be wary of a fraudulent email being circulated that claims to offer a 30% discount on their taxes. The email uses the Tax Office logo and the words ‘Cut Off Taxes Program (COTP) has been released – Join Now’ in the subject heading …
The subject heading in my email was “Message from the Australian Government”.
This article in The Age suggests the dodgy ATO emails are now common.
The scam ATO email, which promises a $250 bonus on top of a tax return, links the taxpayer to an online form that asks for personal details including ATM pin, credit card details and tax file number. Instead of submitting the form online, the website asks for a printed version to be mailed to an address.
While on one hand these scams are getting more sophisticated, they might suck more people in if they employed someone who speaks English.
My email asked me to complete the “formular”.
As I commented way back in a post on my own blog about the African scams, it’s hard to understand why there’s a person left on Earth who would have Internet access and not know these things for what they are.
I had a visit last night at my home from a fellow purporting to be a French artist offering “byoodifull oyeel paynteengs” for sale. I said, “Sorry I’m not in the market to buy anything”, and sent him and his portfolio case on their way. Then I remembered reading something here about Israeli students selling paintings in a scam but I can’t remember the details.
The funny thing is that the weather has been very wet in Perth the past week and he was going about at 6:00 PM on a wet, windy evening in the dark. I can imagine the wind playing havoc with the 1X1.5 metre cardboard portfolio folder he was carrying.
You might have read here about the Israeli art scam that struck Kalgoorlie in April last year. There are various manifestations and despite exposure it never goes away, just like spam email.
That’s the one!! Probably the same scam with a new accent. I wish I’d had a look at them now, just to see if they were originals and what the prices were.
Looking at my previous comment reminds me I’ve got to get my African scam post from draft form.
Well, I finally got to the African scam POST and put it up…had a few hits on it already because I’ve put all the aliases I could find for that scammer in the title.
You’ve got yet another blog format since I last looked in…this one looks quite good – and it puts the details in for your comments header – woo-hoo!
I enjoyed reading that scam trap response Retarius, well done!
Thanks, very glad you liked it. Apparently that prolific scammer is still going and his aliases are scattered like confetti through every possible contact site on the Internet. Hopefully my post will do a little to enlighten any potential victim who Googles them. At 419Eater there is a fantastic rort going on in which a scambaiter has persuaded a mugu that he (the baiter)is a Master Scammer and has him engaged as his journeyman in a quest to produce a pirate’s treasure map to delude “gullible Americans”. Other baiters have joined in as fake victims and are responding in “talk like a pirate” language. The link to the forum thread is: http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=167474