Warning For Anyone Using 'Cardless Cash'

Make sure you're not caught out


Article heading image for Warning For Anyone Using 'Cardless Cash'

Police are worried about the number of scammers taking to new technology like cardless cash ATM withdrawals to target victims. 

Detective Inspector Peter Brewer from Queensland Police's cyber crime unit says there's been a lift in the number of complaints, particularly from people losing big money on things like concert tickets. 

"In the last year, in 2017, there were a number of complaints about cardless cash scams and a lot of them did relate to festival and concert tickets. Basically, it's where offenders will try and present as legitimate sellers and often use stolen identification to convince buyers to proceed," he said.

"There are a lot of legitimate people out there but people need to be aware of the things that they're going to purchase and that there's a risk involved in that. They need to be diligent about looking at the seller, their history, maybe the fact these people are just too new on the market... there needs to be a level of suspicion about buying online."

Detective Inspector Brewer believes innocent Aussies have been fleeced of thousands of dollars by the relatively sophisticated scammers. 

"Be cautious, especially about concert tickets," he said.

"The golden rule is never pay money to someone you don't know and trust, use a secure platform perhaps like PayPal that provides a guarantee, and if you are meeting the seller to proceed with a transaction then preferably do it in a public place, and take a friend with you."

ACORN is the body responsible for the recording of online scams and fraud. Detective Inspector Brewer says the figures on record are probably not a true reflection of how often scammers are duping Aussies of cash and it often comes down to victims' embarrassment. 

"They're certainly very sophisticated in the way they go about things and they mirror very legitimate sites so people just need to be a little bit careful but don't feel embarrassed about it," he said.

Claire Sherwood

25 January 2018

Article by:

Claire Sherwood




Listen Live!

Up Next