Australians Expend Billions on Scam Schemes

The Australian attitude of considering everything fair is perhaps what makes them spend uncountable dollars into online scams, according to a senior fraud investigator.

Recently, there was a hack into Australia's two large news Web sites. Users trying to visit them came across a message, which described the sites as suspicious that could be phishing sites.

New security software is being put up to block access to the two newspaper sites. These sites were the Age in Melbourne and the Sydney Morning Herald. The program does not block access to News Ltd. Web sites. The new anti-virus software was launched in March this year to prevent users from accessing the sites because they were believed to contain malware that links to pop-up ads supposedly from Fairfax Digital.

Top anti-fraud officer, Acting Superintendent Brian Hay of the Queensland Police Service issued an alert saying that scams were on the rise while people were willing to fall into them.

In a tracking operation of a recent incident of Nigeria-based scams, it was found that about $446,000 left Queensland within one month, Superintendent Hay said. Nzherald published this on May 5, 2007.

When police talked to the victims, 25 in all, it found that the victims paid over $7.2 million spanning many years hoping to receive lucrative earnings.

The Australian Federal Police estimated that the cost of computer-based crimes across the globe was about $140 billion per year that was more than the expected earnings from world drugs trade.

Superintendent Hay said that the scam was a global issue where the criminals were not attacking Australians specifically. People continue to pay while they can't understand how one wins a lottery for which he/she never bought a ticket and then asked to pay fees to claim the prize. Although it doesn't appear logical but people are lured by the dollar sign, Hay said in news that Nzherald published on May 5, 2007.

There are numerous scams currently in operation across Australia as varied as phishing to fake lotteries, 'get rich quick' schemes, investment scams, pyramid schemes and 'work at home' plans.

Related article: Australian Blogger Uses Spam To Boost Blog

» SPAMfighter News - 5/11/2007