Yahoo Finance AFP’s serious warning to Aussies: ‘It’s not us’
The AFP have warned Aussies to look out for an email or letter.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have warned Australians to be aware of criminals attempting to scam them.
The AFP said it was aware of criminals pretending to be the Australian Federal Police through emails and letters.
“If you receive an email or letter claiming to be the AFP, it’s not us. This is not how we would contact you,” the AFP said in a Facebook post.
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“If you receive a suspicious email, DON’T open any attachments, DON’T forward the email and DON’T respond.”
The AFP said there were a number of warning signs to be aware of including:
The email not coming from a legitimate AFP email address: The only legitimate email address would be from afp.gov.au
The email has undisclosed recipients: The email does not show who it was sent to
The email is not addressed to the recipient despite supposedly containing a legal summons
The email and letter calls for urgent action: The AFP will not send an email threatening a negative consequence if an action is not undertaken immediately
In response to the warning, Aussies took to the comments section, with one user saying if the AFP wanted to contact you, they’d likely do it in person.
“This much I know....If the AFP has bad news for me... they will be at my doorstep to deliver it in person,” they said.
“Look….you’re not wrong,” the AFP replied.
Shockingly, in January 2023, more than $1.6 million was lost to threat and extortion scams, up from $487,271 in January 2022. Over the course of 2022, more than $14.3 million was lost.
Scams on the rise
The federal government has proposed a new text message registry to crack down on scams.
This registry would act as a ‘blocking list’ for scammers and stop them from impersonating government agencies and trusted brands.
The government asked the Australian Communications and Media Authority to investigate the proposal, which has been successful in stopping scammers in other countries.
These types of scams are known as “sender ID scams”, and they trick people into thinking they are receiving legitimate messages from businesses or the government, such as the ATO, myGov, Australia Post, Linkt or your bank.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said Aussies were losing about $4 billion each year to scams.
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