Be very worried if you receive a text message from your “son” saying to “Mum” or “Dad” that they are in trouble and need money. Please make sure you contact your child and speak to them ON THE PHONE before sending any money.
The scammer’s phone number in this case was “0451 162 572”.
Money Scammed and Stolen was $6850.
This Scam has been reported to police.
Here is what this poor mother victim of the scam told us, in her own words:
This all happened at 3-4 pm on 5/11/24. The Scammer impersonated my son by calling me “mum” and texted me that he dropped his phone into the toilet and it got damaged. He then asked me to help pay his bills. He asked me to send a photo of my debit card which he later withdrew $1800+50 from my HSBC account as he felt my St George account might take too long and he would have missed his “payment deadline”. I suggested paying his other bill by BPay and he agreed so I helped processed the BPay Payment after for $5000 from my St George account which I questioned as he was asking for $2750 at first. He was giving me the reason of some “Increments”, and I was silly to fall for this.
Also of note: the Scammer’s business name on their bank account that the mum paid was called “MasterCard Prepaid Management Services Aus P/L“.
