By Patrick Avenell
SYDNEY, NSW: The ACCC loves a good slamming, and now it is encouraging the general public to get involved as well. The target is the ACCC’s favourite punching bag: telephone scammers.
In a release this morning, the ACCC has actually used the world ‘slam’ in its call to arms, teaming up with ACMA to take on fraudsters.
“Over the past two months, complaints about scam telephone calls to the ACCC and the ACMA have increased significantly from 200 per month to around 2,000 across the two agencies,”’ said ACMA chairman Chris Chapman.
“Consumers can stop themselves being scammed by never disclosing any personal or financial details to these callers,” said ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel. “Cutting off the lifeline is the best way to disrupt scammers.”
The ACCC and ACMA then list a variety of scams currently circulating, some of them as ingenious as they are fraudulent. There are the usual ones with callers asking for bank and credit card details, fake tax refunds and free holidays, but our favourite, for its delicious use of irony, was one involving scammers offering to place the person’s details on the Do Not Call list for a fee.
The ACCC’s advice for people who receive these calls is to hang up immediately.