A former call-centre worker has lifted the lid on why Australians are ‘easy prey’ for overseas scammers.
According to an insider who worked with a cryptocurrency scam company in Ukraine, the fraudsters believe Australians are wealthy and trusting, and that unlike in America, law enforcement does not go after them.
Mark, who wished to not use his real name, told the ABC he was lured into the call-centre job by the good pay several years ago when he was a new migrant in Ukraine.
However, he soon became uncomfortable with the deceptive approach and eventually quit.
‘I was told Australians have good money, a good salary,’ he told the public broadcaster.
‘Ever since I’ve been in the industry, they’ve never targeted Americans because they believe the American government reacts to certain things like that, and you’re going to be busted in the next couple of months.
‘And they saw that Australians do not do much, because this industry has been in Australia for a very long time.’
The government’s ScamWatch reports there was $300 million lost in investment scams in Australia last year.
Australians lost $300 million to overseas investment scams last year, ScamWatch says
Private investigator Ken Gamble, who runs scam recovery company IFW Global, said scammers were fully aware that US authorities were more likely to go after them.
‘They have successfully prosecuted and extradited hundreds of fraudsters from overseas, who have committed these types of crimes against Americans,’ he told the ABC.
‘So most of the call centres around the world have America on the ‘Do Not Call’ list. Traditionally they just don’t call Americans because of the fear of having the FBI come after them.’
He said was there was ‘no such fear’ in Australia because, traditionally, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) had never gone after these scammers.
But the AFP said they were attempting to disrupt overseas criminal networks by working with local authorities abroad.
Detective inspector Nuckhley Succar from the AFP’s Cybercrime Command said the AFP was located in 33 countries.
‘Through our international network, we’re able to work with the law enforcement and international partners within those jurisdictions on various crimes, including cyber enabled fraud, which lend into scam centres,’ he said.
Detective inspector Succar said he did not know how many arrests had been made in relation to overseas scams.
‘We don’t have those exact figures,’ he said.
‘Each jurisdiction around the world operates differently in accordance with their own laws and processes and procedures.
Aussies are seen as wealthy and trusting by overseas scammers, a whistleblower says
‘We also have our own laws and procedures and processes within the judicial system, for example, that we are authorised by law to operate in.’
Mark said the scammers worked on a nine-hour work day that was arranged around time-zones for each country they were targeting.
He said they started calling Australia, New Zealand and countries in Asia in the morning, then after lunch they called targets in Europe.
Mark said he spoke to about 20 Australians each day when he worked in the Ukraine call centre and ‘closed’ half a dozen of them.
This meant he convinced them to invest their money in the fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme.
But he said he began to feel guilty about the practice and soon quit.
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