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Aussie Dad loses $80K to elaborately devised ‘work from home’ scam - 'This is the first time I borrowed money from my friends'
A dad from Sydney has been swindled out of his family’s life savings after falling victim to a sophisticated hiring scam. The 48-year-old shared that he thought he was starting a brand new job working remotely after he clicked on a fake job ad on Facebook.
He was initially introduced to a fake employer that supposedly employed several people all working together on the exceedingly elaborate scheme.
The popularity of online scams is exploding, so it's important you keep your wits about you. Source: OpenAI.
The con artists hired ‘fake employees’ through Facebook, created a WhatsApp group filled with fake workers, and convinced their victims that they could earn funds by clicking on dodgy online advertisements.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) stated that these types of schemes are all too common, with as many as 300 reports of similar scams taking place this year alone.
The family chose to remain anonymous due to the embarrassment they felt after the shocking incident.
This is a scam that is often targeting struggling Aussies and pensioners who want to make money from home to supplement their income. Unfortunately, if something sounds too good to be true, it often is.
So what exactly happened?
‘John’ (not his real name) needed to make ends meet while attempting to sell the business he owned, which had taken quite a hit during the pandemic and the construction of a new motorway that reduced traffic to his petrol franchise.
With two children, Nick and Kathleen, studying full time, and Carol, his wife, not employed, John had a difficult time paying the bills. Any extra money coming in would be a huge help.
‘We didn’t have any income to come in. So we were sort of desperate,’ Nick, the son, shared.
So, on the 24th of August, when a job ad popped up on Facebook offering online work, John didn’t hesitate to click on the link.
He was led to an online ‘employer’ by Venus, a fake e-marketing company, and made to create an online wallet for his ‘clicks for commission’ role, in which he would be paid to artificially inflate online traffic statistics.
Shortly after starting the role, John’s wallet was suddenly emptied due, the company said, to an ‘IT glitch’. He was transferred to a ‘customer service contact’ and told to deposit some of his own money.
Since they had told him he could later withdraw it, along with a hefty commission, he complied.
In the WhatsApp group chat filled with ‘members of the company’, the scammers proceeded to post fake receipts of their own deposits and withdrawals, acting as if the ‘technical difficulty’ was normal and had already been resolved.
It took two days to finish the job. When John tried to withdraw the funds, he was told that there was another technical error and that he could not access the money he had deposited, a whopping $86,000 of his own money, or any of his earnings.
John’s son detailed how his Dad was taken advantage of by the cunning fraudsters, referring to their family as ‘vulnerable’. ‘My dad didn’t know how vulnerable people could be on the internet, how people could manipulate or emotionally control you into giving away your entire life savings,’ said the son.
John discovered that his withdrawal request had been declined and that he would have to pay an additional $30,000 if he wanted to access his money. It was at this point that Nick said that his sister thought the situation was ‘sketchy’, but the damage had been done, as John had already borrowed $30,000 from a friend as a ‘work-related loan’.
The Sydney family is currently trying to raise funds on GoFundMe to get back the money they lost to the group.
With the ever-increasing complexity of online scams, even the most seasoned internet users need to remain vigilant. While this is far from an exhaustive list, here are a few guidelines you can follow to ensure that you don’t become the victim of an online scam.
1. Don’t click on links in emails or messages from people you don’t know.
2. If you’re unsure about a website, do a quick Google search of the company or service. If it’s a scam, someone is likely to have written about it online.
3. Be wary of job ads that promise easy money for little work. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
4. Don’t give out personal information like your bank account details or credit card number unless you’re sure you can trust the person or company you’re dealing with.
5. Keep your computer’s security software up to date to help protect yourself from malware and viruses.
And if you are unlucky enough to be scammed, report it to the ACCC’s Scamwatch and the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network (ACORN), and let us know here at the SDC. Falling for a scam isn't something you should feel ashamed of - you're not alone, and we're here to help.
Finally, we recommend taking a look at our free guide to cyber safety ebook here.
