Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe today issued an urgent warning to residents on the Central Coast to avoid a scam where telephone callers, claiming to be from Fair Trading, offer to reimburse overcharged bank fees.

Mr Stowe said Fair Trading had received four reports about the scam on Friday and one today.

“People should just hang up on these callers,” he said.

“Under no circumstances provide any personal or financial details or make any payment.

“Legitimate banks and government organisations will not contact you asking for personal information.”

Mr Stowe said bank refund scammers would ask for bank account details or confirmation of details and appear to have a lot of personal information about the people they are calling, including dates of birth, who people bank with and also, in some cases, account types and some numbers.

Mr Stowe said 171 scam reports were received by NSW Fair Trading in July.

“So far, there have been more than 1,800 scam reports to Fair Trading this year,” he said.

The top three current scams account for nearly three-quarters of scams reported in July 2011:

• Get-rich quick schemes involving overseas lotteries (34%)
• Refunds on bank and financial institutions over-charged fees (23%)
• Computer-related scams (15%)

The average scam amount was $626 and the largest was $9,000. NSW Fair Trading believes about one in ten consumers who report scams to Fair Trading have lost money to scammers.

Mr Stowe said scammers trade in deception and he urged people to warn their family members, friends and neighbours to be cautious.

For more information go to the Scams page on the Fair Trading website or www.scamwatch.gov.au.

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