Sellers on online marketplaces such as Facebook and Gumtree are at an increased risk of becoming the target of scammers.
National Australia Bank (NAB) Has released new customer data showing that online goods and services scams have increased by 66% in the past three months.
One-third of these reports detailed that criminals are attempting to exploit PayID. PayID is a free service that utilises someone’s mobile number, ABN, or email address to quickly send and receive money.
“We are getting reports of people selling an old TV or fridge online and being inundated with identical messages from scammers wanting to purchase the item with PayID,” said NAB executive, group investigations and fraud, Chris Sheehan.
These scammers are quickly realising that online marketplaces can be an easy method to scam legitimate sellers out of money by using new payment methods such as PayID.
The biggest red flag to look for when consulting a potential buyer is if they ask you for money to upgrade or access PayID.
“There are never any charges related to using PayID,” Sheehan said.
PayID will never email or text you directly, if you happen to receive a message directly from ‘PayID’ it is a scam.
Australians lost $260,000 to PayID impersonation scams last year, according to Scamwatch.
How to spot the scam
Scammers will insist on purchasing the item with PayID, and then claim that their transaction could not be completed because you do not have a “business” account.
They will then claim they have sent you extra money to upgrade your account, send you a fake email as evidence, and put pressure on you to reimburse them.
NAB is advising PayID users that the service will never need you to send money to receive a PayID payment. You will never need to take additional action, like upgrading your account, and you will never receive communications from PayID via email, text, or any other form of messaging.
If you have noticed a scam without falling victim to it, you can report it to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Scamwatch website.
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