Melbourne: Callers from India have again
made headlines after reports from Western Australia said that
aboriginal people have been transferring cash to Indians
pretending to be from Centrelink.
A Broome-based resident, Bob Kirkby, said he was
approached by an aboriginal man at the Broome post office
yesterday.
The man asked for help to transfer USD 300 to Centrelink
which he had been instructed to send to an address in India.
The man had been promised thousands of dollars in return.
Kirkby said he spoke to the so-called Centrelink staffer
over phone and then urged the aboriginal man not to send any
money.
"The fact the money had to be transferred to India rang
some alarm bells for me, especially with this fellow from One
Arm Point, who didn`t know what the hell was going on," he
said.
"He was totally confused, he thought if he sent USD 300
he`d get USD 3,000 back", Kirkby said other people overheard
the conversation and said they had been ripped off too.
"One young woman came up and said she`d just transferred
USD 330, they`re definitely being ripped off," he said.
Department of Consumer Protection`s Annetta Bellingeri
said there have been a number of similar cases reported across
Western Australia in recent weeks.
She said it is often the most vulnerable people who are
targeted.
"It is a concern that anyone falls victim to a scam, and
we do see that scammers are very ruthless in who they target,
whether it be the elderly or people with English as a second
language," she said.
"They really don`t mind who they target as long as they
get their money".
Bellingeri said it is a big concern if people are sending
money to scammers.
"In what we understand, in this case, the money was sent
away to India," she said.
Centrelink, the trading name of the Commonwealth Service
Delivery Agency (CSDA), is a statutory authority responsible
for delivering human services on behalf of agencies of the
Commonwealth Government of Australia.
PTI
