Australians need to be vigilant against scammers on social media posing as customer service support agents for the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the government warns.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said Australians were being tricked into giving out personal information and money to scammers posing as ATO workers on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms.
The scam targets people who reach out to the ATO with questions or complaints through public comments online.
Then with a fake ATO profile, the scammer makes direct contact while offering to help resolve their complaint or follow up with their request.
After gaining their trust, the victim will be diverted to a direct messaging or SMS service and asked to click a link and provide personal details.
Jones said ATO would give general advice on social media, not specific advice, nor provide a link that requires someone to upload their personal information.
“Individual tax office employees won’t use a Facebook profile to contact somebody,” he told ABC on Jan. 23. “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.”
He added that if the ATO provides any additional information in response to a social media comment, it would be done via a message through the myGov portal.
The ATO and other government agencies are working with social media platforms to take down the fake profiles and remove the “damaging interactions.”
Jones said “hundreds” of these profiles had been pulled down in the morning.
“It’s like a game of whack-a-mole—you pull some down, and new ones go up. So we’ve got to continually be on our game about it,” he said.
But Jones conceded that scammers, most of whom operate offshore, were very quick at adapting and exploiting the first signs of vulnerability.
“Our objective through all the policies we’re putting in place right across the economy is to make Australia a destination of last resort, the least-favoured nation, if you like, for these international scam syndicates to operate,” he said.
In December, the ATO posted a video on its official Facebook page reminding the public that its account has a blue verification tick.
“If there’s no tick, don’t click,” the ATO said following the latest public announcement.
“We’ll never ask you for personal information or send links asking for you for your TFN, myGov login, or bank account details.”
Online Jobseekers Also Being Scammed
The latest scam warning comes after the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) revealed that Australian jobseekers lost over $8.7 million (US$6 million) to recruitment scams in 2022.
As many as 3,194 recruitment scams had been reported to the ACCC’s Scamwatch in the past year, with many victims lured by promises of quick money, according to a Jan. 3 statement by the agency.
Scammers often pretend to be hiring on behalf of high-profile companies and online shopping platforms and impersonate well-known recruitment agencies, demanding an upfront sum of money in exchange for a “guaranteed job or income,” the ACCC said.
“Thousands of young Australians have finished school and graduated from university with high hopes about their future careers and the intention to look for work in the new year. Unfortunately, they are being targeted by scammers,” ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said.
“We know younger people are particularly vulnerable, with Australians aged between 25 and 44 reporting the biggest losses to job scams.”
The ACCC warned young people to protect their personal information when applying for jobs and to be wary of job offers via social media platforms or messaging services such as WhatsApp, Signal, or Telegram.
It also reminded jobseekers that a legitimate job offer will not require an immediate decision and warned that if the offer sounded too good to be true, “it probably is.”
If anyone has experienced cybercrime and lost money online, the incident can be reported to the police through ReportCyber.
All Australians who have come across scam attempts, whether successful or not, are encouraged to report the incident to the ACCC.
Cindy Zhan contributed to this report.
Rebecca Zhu is based in Sydney. She focuses on Australian and New Zealand national affairs. Got a tip? Contact her at rebecca.zhu@epochtimes.com.au.
