A former call center worker has revealed why Australians are “easy prey” for foreign scammers.
According to an Australian expat who worked with a cryptocurrency scam company in Ukraine, scammers believe that Australians are rich and trusting and that, unlike in the United States, authorities are not after them.
Mark, who did not wish to use his real name, told the alphabet Several years ago, when he was a new immigrant to Ukraine, he was attracted by the good salary he received to work in a call center.
However, he soon became uncomfortable with the deceptive approach and eventually resigned.
“I was told Australians have good money and a good salary,” he said.
‘Since I’ve been in the industry, they’ve never targeted Americans because they think the American government reacts to certain things like that and they’ll arrest you in the next few months.
“And they saw that Australians don’t do much, because this industry has been in Australia for a long time.”
The government’s ScamWatch reports that $300 million was lost to investment scams in Australia last year.
Australians lost $300m to offshore investment scams last year, says ScamWatch
Private investigator Ken Gamble, who runs scam recovery company IFW Global, said scammers were fully aware that US authorities were more likely to pursue them.
“They have successfully prosecuted and extradited hundreds of fraudsters from abroad who have committed these types of crimes against Americans,” he told ABC.
‘So most call centers around the world have the United States on the ‘Do Not Call’ list. Traditionally they just don’t call Americans for fear of the FBI coming after them.’
He said there was “no such fear” in Australia because, traditionally, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) had never pursued these fraudsters.
But the AFP claimed they were trying to disrupt foreign criminal networks by working with local authorities abroad.
Detective Inspector Nuckhley Succar of the AFP Cyber Crime Command said the AFP was located in 33 countries.
“Through our international network, we are able to work with law enforcement and international partners within those jurisdictions on various crimes, including cyber fraud, which provides loans to scam centers,” he said.
Detective Inspector Succar said he did not know how many arrests had been made in connection with overseas scams.
“We don’t have those exact numbers,” he said.
‘Each jurisdiction around the world operates differently according to its own laws, processes and procedures.
Foreign scammers view Australians as rich and trusting, whistleblower says
“We also have our own laws, procedures and processes within the judicial system, for example, that we are authorized to operate within.”
Mark said the scammers worked a nine-hour workday organized around the time zones of each country they targeted.
He said they started calling Australia, New Zealand and countries in Asia in the morning and then after lunch they called targets in Europe.
Mark said he spoke to about 20 Australians each day when he worked in the Ukraine call center and “closed” half a dozen of them.
This meant that he convinced them to invest their money in the fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme.
But he said he began to feel guilty about the practice and soon quit.