- November is the biggest month for scams involving debit and credit cards
- Most card-related scams happen on Thursdays between 4pm and 6pm
- NAB expert shares how to spot and avoid common scams
NAB is warning millions of Australians shopping the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales to remain vigilant to scams and know how to recognise a deal from a steal.
Shopping scams and missed delivery scams are among common scams targeting bargain hunters.
New insights from NAB show November scam reports linked to a debit or credit card, are 34% higher than the normal monthly average, followed closely by December, up 22% on the monthly average, with between 4-6pm on Thursdays the prime time these scams occur.
NAB Executive, Group Investigations Chris Sheehan said criminals exploited the fact that people were busy, often stressed and juggling lots of life admin in the lead up to Christmas.
“The Black Friday-Cyber Monday period gives criminals two opportunities to rip people off in quick succession – one when Aussies are shopping the sales and another when they’re waiting for packages to be delivered,” Mr Sheehan said, who spent almost 30 years working with the Australian Federal Police.
“We see a lot of fake websites and social media ads impersonating well-known brands at this time of year, playing on people’s desire to bag a bargain before Christmas. We also see what are known as gift card scams.
“Criminals then move to scams impersonating delivery and postal services. These often involve a text message or email claiming your parcel couldn’t be delivered and ask you to click a link to update your details.”
Read an explainer detailing how these scams work here.
Chris Sheehan’s top scam red flags
- Well-known brands selling items online at prices that are too good to be true.
- Being directed to an online store or website via a social media ad or sponsored search result.
- Text messages or emails appearing to come from a postal or delivery service about your order.
- Being asked to purchase a gift card by someone claiming to be from a legitimate business, government organisation or authority figure to pay an outstanding tax or online service bill.
Mr Sheehan said that shopping scams were a great example of why industry collaboration was critical to stopping the crime before it happened.
“We’re seeing our customers abandon around $470,000 worth of payments every day after receiving a real-time payment alert in our digital channels, so we know these alerts are helping people to pause before they pay,” he said.
“We must disrupt the scam ecosystem before consumers get to this point. If we can plug the deluge of dodgy emails, text messages, social media ads and other ways these criminals are bombarding Australians, we will have greater success forcing these criminals out of our country.”
The warnings come as NAB continues its fight against scams as part of a bank-wide strategy.
“Customer scam losses decreased 20% year-on-year. That’s despite customer scam reports increasing 18% in the same period,” Mr Sheehan said.
