The thing about scams is that they are usually extremely obvious. Most people understand that the Australian Tax Office won’t call you up out of the blue, tell you about a tax debt you’ve never heard of before, and ask you to pay it immediately in the form of iTunes gift cards. But scammers aren’t looking for ‘most people’, they are looking for vulnerable people who maybe aren’t as savvy or computer literate or as confident. Some research has suggested that scammers deliberately try to sound like scammers to immediately weed out people who might catch on to them.
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Most people will recognise that two guys rocking up to your house wearing jackets that say “Federal Police” and holding an EFTPOS machine probably are not there to legitimately collect a tax debt you might have, but all they need is the occasional person who does not recognise this. According to SA Police, some scammers tried to pull this exact routine on a resident of the Adelaide suburb of Salisbury Downs yesterday, but were thwarted when the guy realised they were extremely bogus.
The man reportedly received an automated call at 3pm informing him that he had a tax debt outstanding and that, as a result, a warrant had been issued for his arrest. Half an hour later, two men in fake AFP jackets rocked up to his house and asked him to pay back the debt with an EFTPOS machine they had conveniently brought with them.
Rightfully quite suspicious, the man asked them to provide ID, at which point they promptly fucked off.
Police described the two men as “of Indian Subcontinental and Asian appearance, one aged in [his] late 20s, the other in his 40s with an American accent”, and are asking anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
