It is said that a fool and their money are soon parted, but nowadays even very intelligent people are being scammed by some very amoral people.
Hundreds of Australians have been receiving phone calls from people pretending to be officers from the ATO. These scammers use commonly available software to falsely project legitimate Australian numbers on caller ID and call logs, so they can pretend to be ATO officers or other third parties.
In a recent Victorian case, the scammers claimed to a school principal that they were conference calling her ‘accountant’ while they had her on the phone. She could actually see her accountant’s phone number on her mobile for the supposed conference call. Needless to say, her real accountant knew nothing of this.
In that particular case, while she was on the phone to the ATO impersonators, she stopped the car, and they said,
“Why have you stopped?”
giving her the impression they were aware of everything she did, which would have seemed very frightening. In the end, they harassed her so much, she ended up paying the “ATO” in Google Play cards.,
If you are unsure of your tax position and the ATO calls, or if something similar happens to you, just hang up. For IN8 clients, contact finance@in8businessadvisory.com.au, and we will contact you personally with your REAL tax information. Believe us; if it really IS the ATO, they will forgive you for hanging up on them.
P.S. The ATO would never ask you to pay fees or charges with Google Play cards or iTunes cards or any other unusual payment methods other than BPAY or EFT.
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