Australian authorities warn about World Cup scams

The Australian authorities have recently issued a warning over a new wave of scams that is hitting consumers, with the consumers being led to believe that they are World Cup related promotions when in fact they are simply scams designed to get personal and financial details from consumers.

Over recent years fraudulent scams have become a huge concern, with people being scammed in a variety of ways such as by post, by phone, and via the internet. With the huge number of people that now have broadband access many fraudsters target their victims in this way, and many broadband users have fallen for these often very convincing scams.

Australian authorities are now warning that there is a new wave of scams, and this time fraudsters are trying to make out that these are promotions that are linked to the ongoing World Cup tournament. Fraudsters use consumers’ interest in the World Cup to attract their attention, and by successfully getting the consumer interested enough to part with details are able to scam and defraud them.

The recent warning has come from the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and official from the authority said: ‘Increasingly, spam scammers are framing their messages around topical events, such as the World Cup. These types of messages typically come in waves, and play on people’s enhanced interest in the event as a hook.’

At present only a small number of World Cup related scams have been reported. However, authorities believe that this could increase and have warned consumers to be vigilant about apparent promotions, prize wins, and similar communications that they receive via the Internet, via their mobile phone, or even in the post.

Source – ACMA