A woman who scammed a man of a significant amount of cash by falsely advertising an item on social media appeared in the Launceston Magistrates Court.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Court documents reveal that Paige Sheree Archer, a 20-year-old woman of George Town, pleaded guilty to dishonestly acquiring a financial advantage on July 11.
The documents state that on November 3, 2021 Archer listed a Samsung mobile phone on Facebook Marketplace for $480. Archer dishonestly acquire a financial advantage from the scam and was subsequently charged by police.
Archer was ordered to pay $480 in restitution and a was also issued a court levy fine of $86.70. No convictions were recorded.
Hackers pretend to be family members
Scammers are impersonating close family members and sending messages through social media and are asking for funds to be transferred into their account, according to Tasmanian police.
Detective Sergeant Paul Turner said last month, police had received reports from 10 Tasmanians who had accumulatively been scammed of over $50,000.
"It's timely to remind all Tasmanians to be wary for scams when online - if you are sending money to someone online check the legitimacy and that you know the person before you send any money," Detective Sergeant Turner said.
The scammers send messages through social media platforms such as WhatsApp, saying that they have lost, broken or had their phone stolen and urgently require funds to be transferred into their account.
This scam results in people transferring funds to a bank account to assist their family member only to find out that it was not their family contacting them.
POLICE ADVICE:
- Never provide your identity over the phone without first confirming who you are speaking with via legitimate source.
- Never send money, digital currency, or gift cards to someone you do not know without first confirming they are legitimate via an independent source.
- Ensure you have set adequate security settings on your social media and email accounts.
Anyone who thinks they are the victim of a scam should report it to the Australian Cyber Security Centre here.
More information on general scams can be found here.
Classified scams increasing in Tasmania as Scamwatch records $175,000 in losses nationally
A cyber crime expert has revealed that Tasmanians are becoming more susceptible to classified scams, and has detailed the elaborate lengths scam artists go to, to obtain funds from innocent victims.
So far, in 2022, Australians have made more than 275 reports to Scamwatch about rental and accommodations scams, with reported losses exceeding $175,000.
In a Tasmanian case, a Facebook post to a Launceston rental page, a woman alleged that she was scammed $1850 after she sent money to a person as part of a bond.
Tasmania Police Detective Sergeant Paul Turner said police had noticed an increase in scams in the past few years and attributed this to the changing social media environment.
"The scammers have been able to target people via fraudulent webpages and fraudulent advertisements so it's just the way we've gone. We're buying more things online, but we're also getting more people scammed online," he said.
"They change the narrative depending on the target audience that they are getting. If you look up something on your phone, all of a sudden on your social media, the cookies will start sending you advertisements relating to that subject matter.
"So if you look up "wanting to buy a car", you'll start getting advertisements sent to you on your social media, and that's how the scammers operate."
Detective Sergeant Turner said Tasmanian police had charged numerous people in relation to advertisement scams in the past 12 months, and that a woman in Launceston was currently before the courts in relation to an alleged offence regarding a rental scheme.
Detective Sergeant Tuner also said that a large majority of scams originated overseas and that it was a difficult task to locate the offenders when they were based in other countries.
"In most cases the money is transferred to an Australian bank. The problem with that is the account holder has usually had their account compromised or they are the victim of another scam, they are what we would call money mules.
"An example is a romance scam victim who is getting told that they're going to have money paid into their account by the person that they've become engaged with online and to send that money to this person who's overseas when in fact all they're doing is taking the victims money from a rental scam and sending it to the offenders overseas.
"We do the checks on the bank accounts and find that the bank accounts are owned by someone within Australia and when we visit that account holder, we also find they are the victim of a scam.
"This is the difficult part then the other case where the money is sent directly to an overseas bank account or money transfer service, such as Western Union, or they use digital currency, which is becoming more frequent and in that situation.
"The likelihood of identifying or recovering the money is very, very low."
A spokesperson from the ACCC urged residents to not send money to prospective landlords unless they had inspected the property.
"Scammers claim to own accommodation they do not and will make excuses as to why they cannot show you the property, such as being overseas," the spokesperson said.
"We encourage everyone to report scams to the ACCC via the Scamwatch report a scam page. This helps us to warn people about current scams, monitor trends and disrupt scams" they said.
A spokesperson from the ACCC said they had received about 50 reports per month of rental scams.
The main rental scam Australians are falling victim to is sending a deposit in advance of inspecting the rental property, scammers requesting individuals fill out tenancy applications, complete with personal identification documents so scammers can impersonate the victims, and unsolicited calls informing individuals they have won the opportunity to act as a mystery shopper for accommodation in Australia if they pay the upfront cost of several hundred dollars by credit card.
Why not have your say? Write a letter to the editor here:
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark www.examiner.com.au
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter: @examineronline
- Follow us on Instagram: @examineronline
- Follow us on Google News: The Examiner