How do I spot a Scam Email?

Here is an example of a Scam Email :

How do I know?

1. For starters, I don’t bank with ANZ. Why would they ask me for an updated phone number when I’ve never given them one in the past? That alone is enough proof I need to dismiss this email as a fraud. But there’s more…
2. This email was delivered to my work email address. Even the bank I bank with wouldn’t have this email address on file.
3. The senders email address is not an ANZ address. Scammers can manipulate the email address so it looks legitimate, through a process called ‘spoofing’ (full definition here).
4. The link this email is asking me to click will not take me to an ANZ website. As I hover my mouse cursor over the link, the website address contained within the link is shown. I’ve never heard of kinetixdance. (Careful if you try this at home… hover or move the mouse over the link, don’t click on it!!)

In this case, the scammers pretended to be a bank but they can pretend to be anybody. Some of the emails can look quite convincing.  As a precaution  – don’t click on anything you’re not sure of.  But hang on a minute…

• What if I did bank with ANZ?
• What if I did just recently change my phone number?
• Maybe I did give them my work email address?

All of a sudden this email is starting to sound credible!

This is how scammers operate, they send thousands of these emails until eventually somebody finds it convincing enough to click. Let your guard down and click it, and you’ve probably just invited some malevolent software into your computer. Viruses designed to gather your personal information and viruses that lock your files while demanding payment are common ones.

So stay vigilant. Even if the email sounds legitimate and could almost apply to your situation. If you have any doubts at all, contact the organisation who ‘supposedly’ sent the email and confirm that it was them who sent it. Scam emails and phone calls pretending to be the Australian Taxation Office are also common. The team at Optima Partners are trained to sniff them out, so please call us if you’ve received any suspicious looking emails or phone calls purporting to be from them.

Below is recording of a scammer message.

If you have have received an email from the ATO or ASIC that you are not sure of, feel free to forward it to us for us to check for you.

Antony Monaldi