As more people are working on their home internet, and others become desperate for money, different scams start popping their heads up. Luckily most of our clients are savvy to phishing scams now, which is great.
Years ago, you could tell the phishing scams because of the appalling spelling and grammar. Not so much now, the scams are becoming more sophisticated, and fraud is something always to be aware of. For one client, it was investing $1000 in bitcoin, for another, it was a friend’s recommendation for cryptocurrency that lost them money; for yet another client it was a trusted financial advisor who (allegedly) took off with our client’s hard-won savings. The latest was being asked to do 2020 tax returns for a long-standing client, then discovering that someone had already lodged them (without the clients’ permission) and pocketed the refund.
Please be very careful, particularly with property transactions that run to hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. And don’t believe anyone who calls and says they’re from the ATO, or the ATO’s debt collector. Either call us for verification or hang up and call the ATO directly. The real ATO won’t mind this. Most importantly, don’t give any sensitive information over the phone to anyone, even if they try to bully or harass you. Stay safe! not just with COVID but with your hard-earned savings.
