General News
14 January, 2021
The latest telephone and computer scam
A MASSIVE shout out to Mr Paul Hayden, who claims to be working for 'PayPal Australia' and early Wednesday morning Paul was working with me to cancel a bogus PayPal Australia transaction. ALERT Paul is a fraud and it was not the real PayPal Australia.
Let’s put the facts on the table early. Paul Hayden does not work for PayPal Australia and he was a telephone call to my mobile at 8:15am wanting to direct me to a website that was masquerading as the official PayPal Australia site.
Yet another telephone scam that preys upon innocent people and tries to steal information and money. We all get the emails and the calls at home from them and frankly we are sick of these leeches.
For the sake of this story I decided to have some fun and investigate when this amazingly helpful employee was going to take me.
Now the number that called me was 02 47451592, this number is not connected and we cannot call back on the number.
Paul asked me to log onto the ‘PayPal Australia’ website. www.PayPalhelpme.webnode.com This site is a fraud and masquerades as the official site. I was asked to log onto my account on that site.
This is where Paul started to come unstuck. I challenged him that his site was a fraud and a scam, and he was attempting to steal my money.
“Can you tell me a valid proof that my site is a fraud. If you don’t have any valid proof, do not argue with me,” was Paul’s response to me.
“Let me tell you, you are sitting at your place at your home, I am working late now in PayPal Australia to save your money.”
Obviously at 8am in Cairns it must be late night in Sydney and I should have total sympathy and admiration for this amazing employee trying to stop a fraudulent PayPal transaction.
The call was terminated abruptly by Paul when I asked him if he thought his mother would be proud of him. He was trying to steal people’s money and his mother would be ashamed of him.
“Don’t you dare talk about my mother” and he then
hung up.
Obviously I wanted to have some fun with Paul from ‘PayPal Australia’, but I would recommend not taking their calls and reporting them immediately to www.scamwatch.gov.au an Australian government site.
At this time there are numerous telephone/ computer scams in circulation. Please exercise caution, some scams like this one have set up a website that look legit but is designed to trick us into logging on and sharing information such as logons and passwords.
The scam watch website does not list this PayPal Australia scam as yet. This could be because it’s a new scam and as yet not identified and reported.
Steps you can take to protect yourself from scams:
Be alert to the fact that scams do exists and they are more than likely going to target you.
Know who you are dealing with. Research the person or company you are about to do business with online or over the phone. Google them, their staff and their phone numbers.
Do not open suspicious texts, emails or pop-ups online.
Do not respond to phone calls asking for remote access.
Keep your personal data safe and secure, put a lock on your mail box and shred all bills before disposing of them.
Keep you mobiles and computers secure. Use password protection and do not share access.
Choose passwords carefully and do not use birthdates or easily discoverable names for a password.
Review your privacy settings on all social media.
Beware of any unusual payment requests. Review your statements and keep an eye out for unusual activity.
Beware of any request for your details or money.
Be careful when shopping online.
You can find out more about how to protect yourself from fraud and scams at the scamwatch website. www.scamwatch.gov.au
