Monday Scam Brief — 9 November 2026

ASIC added 14 names to the Moneysmart investor alert list between 2 and 5 November. Two are impersonations of ACCM Prime Pty Ltd, on lookalike mobile sites. The other 12 are unlicensed names. One puts Meritbrace Equity, a name ASIC listed on 27 October, onto a new domain that shows a Canberra street address.

On 3 November Scamwatch published a media update on buying and selling scams. Fake vehicle websites, marketplace messages that target sellers, and concert-ticket offers are the examples. The National Anti-Scam Centre is warning shoppers ahead of Black Friday and the holiday sales.

WA ScamNet’s four featured warnings are unchanged: event and festival tickets, fake shipping-container sites, flexible-work job scams, and tax phishing emails. The ACCC public warning notice register’s newest entries are still the 3 July 2025 ghost-store notices. Telstra’s active scam list had no new scam type. The ATO scam alerts page is still last updated 29 October 2026. The Australian Signals Directorate’s newest alert is still the 23 October Fortinet alert. The National Anti-Scam Centre’s newest news item is still 14 September 2026.

Official alerts this week

Scamwatch: when the shopfront is a scam

Source: Scamwatch media update, 3 November 2026

The National Anti-Scam Centre says buying and selling scams accounted for 58.7% of Scamwatch reports that involved a financial loss in the first nine months of 2026. From January to September, 11,537 people reported a loss to these scams. Reported losses were $17.2 million, down 16.3% on the same period in 2025. In that same window Scamwatch received 138,392 reports, down 13% on 2025, and reported losses of $250.4 million, down 3%. Across Scamwatch and ReportCyber together, the update says Australians made 184,317 reports and reported $684 million in losses so far this year.

Investment scam losses moved the other way. In the same January to September comparison they rose 10.4%, from $118.4 million to $130.7 million. Fewer people reported a loss: 1,704, compared with 2,101 in the 2025 period. The average loss rose 36.1% to $76,719. The median fell 22.9% to $5,010.

The update describes three patterns that showed up in reports:

Fake vehicle-sales websites. Reports described Australian addresses, phone numbers and ABNs, a wide range of cars, and nationwide delivery. One site used images and details of cars a real business had already sold. Low prices and limited-time offers pushed people to pay. Invoices and contracts made a bank transfer look like an ordinary purchase. The vehicle did not arrive.
Messages to people selling on Vinted. A message said the item had sold and told the seller to follow a link to verify an account or receive payment. The links led to pages impersonating the marketplace, a payment service, or the seller’s bank. In one report, $1,800 was taken from a seller’s account. In another, a chatbot said bank verification was still under way and asked for more than one account.
Fake tickets for Olivia Dean and Bruno Mars concerts. People were approached on Facebook and TikTok, and the conversation often moved to WhatsApp. The sellers referred to familiar ticketing outlets and then asked for extra payments for a transfer, an authorisation, or a name change.

Scamwatch says artificial intelligence is being used to generate product images, build polished websites, and write seller stories, and that a familiar logo, an ABN, or a convincing payment screen can be part of the disguise. So far in 2026 the Centre has recorded 20,353 successful takedowns of scam websites, many of them posing as online shops. With Black Friday and holiday sales approaching, it says large discounts and limited-time offers are a reason to pause and check the seller on a site you opened yourself.

ASIC Moneysmart investor alert list — new names this week

Source: ASIC Moneysmart investor alert list

ASIC added 14 names from 2 to 5 November 2026. The list checked on 9 November had no names dated after 5 November. Two are in the imposter category. The website in the alert is not the company’s real site:

Impersonation of ACCM Prime Pty Ltd (ACN 121 472 562, AFSL 308159) at m.accm-pany.it.com, added 4 November. ASIC lists the real company’s website as accmprime.com.au. ASIC lists no email, phone or address on the alert.
Impersonation of ACCM Prime Pty Ltd at m.jaccm-tu.one, also added 4 November, with the same real company details. ASIC lists no email, phone or address on this alert either. Both fake addresses use a mobile-style host, and neither is accmprime.com.au.

The other 12 are in ASIC’s unlicensed category. ASIC has not marked them as impersonations of a named licensee. A familiar word, a local street address, or a domain that does not match the brand is still an alert. Names that stand out this week:

Meritbrace Equity at meritbrace-equity.org, added 2 November. ASIC lists the email support@meritbrace-equity.org and the address Level 12, 60 Marcus Clarke Street, Canberra ACT 2601. ASIC listed Meritbrace Equity on 27 October at cazkadelufepm.pro, with the alias Valorstead. The 2 November entry does not repeat that alias. ASIC listed Valorstead on 15 September at valorstead.biz and on 13 October at themoneydetectives.com.
E Capital AI at app.ecm-invest.com, added 4 November. ASIC lists the alias E Capital Management, the email support@ecm-invest.com, the phone +41 071 800 17 16, and the addresses Bahnhofplatz 11 Zürich 8001 and 1 Raffles Quay Singapore 048583.
Redmond Sterling at redmondsterling.net, added 4 November. ASIC lists the email support@redmondsterling.email, which is not an address on redmondsterling.net, and the phone 61721476515.
Fortress Global Hub at fortressglobalhub.com, added 5 November. ASIC lists the phone +19713826364 and no email.
AI Globally Invest at aigloballyinvest.com, added 2 November. ASIC lists the aliases AIGloballyInvest Investments AG and AIGloballyInvest Investments Limited, the email support@aigloballyinvest.com, the phone +30 45123452, and the address 201, 8005 Zürich, Switzerland.
Yieldbury Crest at plunzar.com, added 4 November. The name on the alert and the domain do not match. ASIC lists no email or phone.
Global Top Investors Alliance at investingclever.com, added 2 November. ASIC lists the email support@investingclever.com. The name on the alert and the domain do not match.

ASIC also added these unlicensed names on 2 and 5 November, with no email, phone or address on the alert: Cortex Tradero at cortextradero.com (5 November), Arawa Fundex at arawafundex.org, Erysol Delyven at erysoldelyven.com, Fier Patrimoire at fierpatrimoire.com, and Naxelqoryv at naxelqoryv.com (each 2 November).

Being on the list means ASIC says that name should not be treated as a licensed way to invest in Australia. An imposter entry means the site is copying a real company. The real company is a separate entity from the website in the alert. The list is not complete: a missing name is not a green light. Check the live list and ASIC’s professional registers before you send money, and match the website, not just the company name.

What to do

Stop. A car site far cheaper than the rest of the market, a message that says your marketplace item has sold and you must verify a bank account, a ticket seller who moves the chat to WhatsApp and then asks for a transfer fee, or a trading site one character away from a licensee’s name is a reason to pause. An extra fee before you can withdraw is a warning sign too.
Check. Open the retailer, the marketplace, or the ticketing site by typing the address yourself. For an investment, check the investor alert list and ASIC’s professional registers, and match the domain to the real company. ACCM Prime’s website on the alert is accmprime.com.au. A Canberra street address on an unfamiliar investment site is a detail to check, not proof of a licence. Open the ATO, myGov or your bank by typing the address yourself.
Protect. If you paid a fake shop or handed over card details, contact your bank. If you entered a password, change it and turn on multi-factor authentication. Do not read a one-time code back to someone who contacted you, and do not enter wallet details on a page you reached from a message.

How to report

Scamwatch (ACCC): scamwatch.gov.au/report-a-scam
Report a cybercrime to police via ReportCyber: cyber.gov.au
Identity and recovery support: IDCARE on 1800 595 160

This brief is a public-interest summary of official Australian sources. It is not legal, financial or tax advice. Always rely on the original agency page linked above.

Sources used

Pages were opened on 9 November 2026. Scamwatch’s news RSS and the browse page both list the 3 November shopfront update as the newest item. The item before it is still the 28 September investment-scam alert. The ACCC public warning notice register was opened the same day. Its newest notices remain those dated 3 July 2025. The automated fetch marked every register title as new because the previous snapshot was empty after an HTTP 403. The live register has no new notice. Telstra’s extracted scam-type titles match the 2 November fetch. The ATO scam alerts page is still last updated 29 October 2026. The ASD alerts page has no alert dated in November. Its newest item is still the Fortinet alert of 23 October 2026. The National Anti-Scam Centre news feed’s newest item is still dated 14 September 2026.