“We’ve had about 2,500 reports about it with $3.8 million reported lost to the ACCC and we only get about 13 per cent of complaints,” said ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard.
The “Hi Mum” scam text has now cost Australians a combined total of $4 million officially, but official government statistics are believed to be “just the tip of the iceberg”.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) deputy chair Delia Rickard says the ACCC has been flooded with complaints about this scam but those are coming from just a fraction of victims.
“We’ve had about 2,500 reports about it with $3.8 million reported lost to the ACCC and we only get about 13 per cent of complaints, so you can see the real losses are enormous,” she said.
“It’s very prolific. It’s one of those ones we’ve just been flooded with complaints about, so they clearly are covering Australia.”
The scam became known earlier in the year but has continued to be prevalent and Rickard believes that “we will continue to see it for a while”.
It involves impersonating a family member of the victim and pretending they damaged their old phone and have a new number.
They then casually ask the victim to transfer money into an account, claiming they can’t access their online banking.
“It tugs on all those human relationship feelings we have for the people we’re close to,” Rickard said.
“It’s just too easy for people to fall for this scam.”
Dave Lacey the founder of IDCARE, a Queensland-based cyber security charity helping victims, said they have seen the number of scammed victims quadruple in the last three months.
“Around 90 per cent of people that come to IDCARE haven’t been to Scamwatch or haven’t been to police.
“We know that official government statistics are really just the tip of the iceberg.”
The ACCC has urged people to not send money without being completely certain of who you are sending it to. It has advised calling the number already on your phone of the person that a text message is claiming to be.
If you can’t reach them, call the new number that sent the text and ask who is speaking and then a personal question to verify them before sending any money.
