Most common scams and how to avoid them

In the wake of the Medibank data breach, scams of all kinds are on the rise. Here’s how to spot some of most common scams prevalent at the moment.

Medibank customers are reporting an alarming surge in scam attempts after hackers gained access to the personal information of more than 9.7 million past and present accounts.

Whether you’ve ever been with Medibank or not, the situation highlights just how vulnerable we all are to scammers.

So what kind of scams can Medibank customers (and the victims of future hacks) expect to receive?

Read: Hackers release Medibank data. What does that mean?

Here are some of the most common scams popular with cybercriminals today, and how to spot and avoid them.

Emails from legitimate contacts

This scam involves criminals using software to send emails that appear to be from other legitimate businesses.

Say you arrive at work one day and have an email in your inbox from one of your regular clients or associates. The email address is correct, the email signature is the same and there is even a trail of your previous correspondence with this client.

The email says your client needs to update their banking details and provides you with a new account number for any future payments. But rather than paying your client, you’re now paying a scammer.

Read: Scams targeting Australians on the rise

These scams are hard to spot and a lot of work has gone into making the emails look and feel legitimate. A good way to combat these is to become more diligent with requests involving sensitive information.

If you receive a request like this, call your client to confirm the request is real. This goes for any request from your bank, your employer, your phone or internet provider, or really anybody asking for sensitive information.

SMS verification codes and links

Some online services use codes or links sent via SMS to confirm it’s you. If you ever receive a text like this out of the blue, even from a source that seems legitimate, delete and definitely do not click any links.

A common trick used by scammers is to use your phone number and account to order a new phone online. A verification code for the purchase will be sent to your number via SMS.

Soon after receiving this text, the scammers text your phone saying you have a won a competition, or have received bonus data, or some other incentive. You just have to call a number and read the code you just received to them.

But instead of a prize, it’s the scammers on the other end and you’ve just verified a new phone purchase for them.

Investment scams

Investment scams almost always involve an unsolicited offer from an online trading platform, bank or other financial institution. The offer can be through a phone call from an actual person, or through email, SMS or social media platforms.

Read: Your privacy rights, given data breaches and identity theft

They usually offer guaranteed returns on any money invested, but once you give them your money it is never seen again, and the scammers have disappeared.

These offers also often appear to come from legitimate institutions, so if you are ever tempted make sure you contact them separately to confirm.

Selling cheap goods online

A scam almost as old as the internet itself involves listing an item for sale on eBay or a similar website. The price asked will be well below the market rate for the item to lure victims in.

When you go to pay for the item, using a credit card then attracts a larger fee, making the price unattractive. But if you agree to pay via money transfer you can get the original price or maybe even cheaper.

But you are sending money to the scammer’s account, and the item doesn’t exist. This is another scam that can be very hard to spot until it’s too late.

But as the old saying goes, if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is.

Have you ever received an unsolicited text or email? What did you do? Let us know in the comments section below.