Wheelers Hill grandmother targeted by scammers pretending to be from the Australian Taxation Office

A DEVASTATED grandmother has told how she was so terrified of being taken away by the tax office she spent $5000 on gift vouchers to give to scammers.

Wheelers Hill grandmother Glenice Harrison was fleeced out of $5000 after being conned by scammers who pretended to be from the ATO. Picture: Lawrence Pinder

A WHEELERS Hill grandmother, just out of hospital after a battle with pneumonia, has been conned out of $5000.

Upon returning home after nine days at The Valley Private Hospital, Glenice Harrison found five threatening voicemails on her phone pretending to be from the Australian Taxation Office.

The messages said she had committed fraud and was to contact officials immediately or go to jail.

Mrs Harrison then made the most bizarre and costly call of her life.

“They answered and I was put on hold as they were speaking to other customers and finally spoke to someone,” she said.

“It just sounded so real.”

The man on the other end of the line, who had an Indian accent, said she could pay back her $9000 debt — which she believed may have been related to her small business — through iTunes gift cards.

Mrs Harrison asked if it was a scam twice but the man reassured her “we can help you”.

“They said if I could pay the money within one and a half hours (before the warrant officers came) they could stop them,” she said.

“I didn’t know at that stage how to get out. I truly felt stalked,” she said.

She drove to Oakleigh Woolworths and the scammers coached her through the purchase of eight $500 cards.

She then locked herself inside her car and read $4000 worth of activation codes back to the scammers.

But it wasn’t enough — she had to “complete the payment of debt”.

She drove to Woolworths in Wheelers Hill where she grabbed a handful of iTunes gift cards.

Her debit limit only allowed her to buy two $500 vouchers.

Mrs Harrison told the scammers she “could not do this anymore”.

They allowed her to go home to eat, charge her phone and sleep but would call her in the morning — by then she’d been on the phone for more than six hours.

Mrs Harrison went to bed fully clothed, afraid of being taken away, to wake before midnight realising she’d been scammed. She drove to Glen Waverley police station to report what had happened.

Glen Waverley police Sen-Constable Michelle Keatley said she was the fourth person in two weeks to fall victim to this scam.

An ACCC spokeswoman, who didn’t want to be named, said people were advised to be wary of using gift cards as an alternative form of currency.

Report scams to scamwatch.gov.au