Bank warns of 'news article' that is really a scam

A news article about the Commonwealth Bank and cryptocurrency, purportedly on the ABC website, is a scam and “totally false and untrue”, the bank has warned in a statement.

“The ‘article’ which purports to be a story on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) news website, is a scam designed to entice unsuspecting people to go to the scammer’s website and provide their personal details and money,” the statement reads.

“CBA has reported the scam to the relevant authorities and asked social media publishers to take down the false article.

“The bank has warned Australians through its own channels not to respond to or click through to the website if they receive the alleged fake article via social media or any other channel such as a text message or an email.”

The statement comes after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) launched proceedings against Facebook owner Meta in the Federal Court over the publication of cryptocurrency scam advertisements featuring public figures on Facebook.

The ACCC says the Facebook ads promoted investment in crypto or money-making schemes that were actually scams and gave the impression of being associated with public figures, including David Koch and Dick Smith ,who had not provided approval or endorsement.

When clicking on the scam ads, the ACCC said that users would be directed to a fake news story featuring quotes attributed to the public figure depicted in the Facebook ad.

Individuals were then invited to sign up to the fake scheme, and those who did experienced “high pressure tactics” from scammers to convince them to deposit money, the ACCC found.

The consumer watchdog said it was aware of one person who had lost more than $650,000 due to a scam that was advertised on Facebook.

Are you noticing that scams are getting more daring? What extra safeguards are you putting in place? 

3 comments

That is the risk of using social media sites. These online sites should make sure the advertising they accept is all legal before allowing them to be available to the public. Also, people should check these adverts before committing to whatever is being promoted. 

There are a lot of stupid people out there !!!

.... which are fair game to scammers and then expect the Government to get them out of their stupidity.

To keep 100% safe, do not click on anything (obvious first move). Secondly, whosoever is trying to scam you - contact the real business that you deal with and ask them did they send this and read some of what is in the email.

I delete and bounce all my emails that are not listed correctly in the address book. I also have Mailwasher which stands between the email coming to my inbox and the ISP delivering them. This program is worth its weight in gold, as it allows me to read the email, check the header and the source, if its fishy and has some hints within, its gone. I have had Mailwasher since 2000 and I have never had anything come in that was nasty, that I couldn't look at (read) either source or header, and decide what to do. Once I set Bounce and delete, I never see them again, MW deletes it before it is even shown in the MW body to read.

But one small glitch happened, I bounced and deleted my banks email. It was a genuine one but I changed it from blacklist and bounce so not to do it again. I also phoned the bank to ask if what was sent was genuine to have it confirmed before setting to unbounce and undelete.

3 comments



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