Online scam costs Glass House Mountains man $10k: Kathy Sundstrom

A Glass House Mountains man avoided losing $72,000 to an online scam thanks to a smart detection service.

What do Glass Houses and investment scams have in common? The answer is Bob.

Bob has lived on his small acreage at the foothills of the Glass House Mountains for nearly a decade.

He knows his way around a computer and over the years he has dabbled in shares.

Bob was looking for new investment options when he saw something advertised on Facebook that caught his attention.

“I filled in an online form and someone rang back,” he explained.

But Bob wasn’t one to jump into an investment quickly. He waited for the person on the phone to explain what the investment entailed and provide extensive details before taking a small leap.

“I sent them $10,000 as an initial investment,” he said.

He was emailed copies of the shares and it came with “a certificate and everything”.

The person kept in regular contact, boosting Bob’s confidence in the investment opportunity and he watched his small investment begin to make nice, comfortable returns. Then his contact began suggesting bigger stakes, where more money could be made.

“They talked me into another investment, only this time it was meant to be $200,000,” Bob said.

He refused to invest such a big amount but, over time, agreed to transferring $72,000.

Thankfully Bob’s bank detected there was something unusual with transaction and contacted him to warn him it appeared he was being scammed.

Bob was able to cancel the transfer and never lost the larger amount.

But he is $10,000 poorer and he has learnt a valuable lesson.

“I never thought I’d be vulnerable to scams,” he said.

“But they had me hook, line and sinker”.

Kathy Sundstrom works for online safety company IDCARE and was a Sunshine Coast Daily journalist. Picture: Patrick Woods.

Bob was one of nearly 3670 engagements IDCARE has had with victims of investment scams living in regional and remote communities.

Typically, most victims lose on average $36,000 in these kind of scams – which is nearly 15 per cent higher than that experienced by investment scam victims living in metropolitan areas.

People like Bob are the reason IDCARE is taking scam awareness to the next level – with a new initiative specifically targeting regional and remote communities.

This initiative is Cyber Resilience Outreach Clinics (CROC). And we will officially launch it at the Glass House Mountains, not far from Bob, on Monday, November 15.

For the past eight years, our national charity has provided free support to victims of scams, identity theft and cybercrime from our head office in Caloundra and, more recently, Napier, New Zealand

Now we are taking our award-winning support service on the road, with the help of a few key sponsors, including Westpac, Meta (formerly Facebook) and the nbnco.

Our purposefully designed cyber vehicles will be travelling across Australia for the next two years, providing a real presence in regional and remote communities to increase scam awareness and create resilience.

And former ABC Sunshine Coast presenter, Rob Blackmore, will be permanently behind the steering wheel of one of the vehicles, as he travels the country with his family, delivering the clinics and capturing the stories along the way only Rob Blackmore can.

We have already been on the road testing the clinics in remote areas across Queensland the Northern Territory.

The response has been overwhelmingly positive but a message from Debbie in Laidley, confirmed the value of what we were doing.

“I attended the mobile IDCARE at Laidley on Saturday and I was so glad I did,” she wrote.

“Fast forward to Tuesday and, unbelievably, my card was scammed. Because of IDCARE I was on top of it straight away and they only took $6.99 from my account before I cancelled my card.

“Thank you so much for the vital and valuable info you provided.”

*Bob is not his real name.