Category: Wealth Tips

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Tax agents used in a new scam

Fraudsters are impersonating both the ATO and tax agents in an attempt to scam funds from taxpayers.
Business Katarina Taurian 07 September 2018

Often using the threat of outstanding debt, these fraudsters initiate a fake three-way conversation with themselves, a taxpayer and someone impersonating a tax agent.

The tax office is warning taxpayers to be aware of this new scam, as members of the community have reported several attempts at fraud of this nature.

Scammers will also often tell a taxpayer a complaint has been made against them, that their arrest is imminent if they don’t pay a tax debt, or that a tax refund will be issued in exchange for bank account details.

Earlier this year, the ATO issued similar warnings over a myGov scam, after fraudulent emails promising taxpayers a tax refund were issued en masse, in an attempt to steal personal and financial information.

As always, the tax office is reminding the tax profession of the need to be vigilant as the regulators usually see a spike in scam activity at tax time.

katarina.taurian@momentummedia.com.au

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Preparing for your ‘digital afterlife’: our 5-step approach

My accountant forwarded me this from Andreyev Lawyers:
When was the last time you posted a letter, printed out a photo, rang up your share broker, or visited a bank branch? Chances are, not that recently. This is because more and more of our lives are spent online, and hanging off digital cloud services.

But what would happen if you lost mental capacity or died? While your physical life may be well provided for, chances are your digital life is seriously at risk.

It is critical that you plan ahead so that access to your digital property, your passwords, online accounts and electronically-stored pictures and information can continue if you become incapacitated or die. By planning ahead, you can ensure full access to your digital property for your family and business partners. This will keep administration costs down, and ensure your valuable and significant digital property is protected.

Compared with physical property, the digital property has five additional and significant obstacles for your family and your legal personal representatives to overcome:
Passwords;
Account ownership and licensing;
Data encryption;
Laws regarding unauthorised access to computers and data services; and
Data privacy laws.
These obstacles can make it almost impossible for someone to access your digital property, even if you intend for them to be able to. You need to plan ahead.

How can you plan ahead?
Step 1: Make a list of all your digital assets and store a hard copy with your Will.
Regularly update this list of assets, accounts and passwords.
Step 2: Check the terms of the service agreements for each of your accounts.
You are looking to see if the terms specify what happens to the account on your death, to see if you actually own anything your beneficiaries can inherit. Many services only offer a limited ‘use right’ while you are alive.
If the service provides you with an option to ‘memorialise’ your account after death (e.g. Facebook), ensure your executors know your wishes and any particular message you would like to leave to friends or followers.
Step 3: Make a list of your important passwords, online accounts and digital property.
Specify what should be done with each item on your list if you become incapacitated or die. Keep your list up to date, store it in a secure location, and let your family and legal personal representatives know how to access it.
Step 4: If you store valuable or significant digital property in the cloud, back up your data to a local computer or local storage device on a regular basis.
Your legal personal representatives and family will be able to access the local device without having to deal with third parties who will be bound by privacy and data protection laws.
Step 5: Work with us to update your Will, Enduring Power of Attorney and other estate planning documents to address digital property.
At a minimum, this means your estate planning documents should:
Specify your wishes about the distribution or deletion of your digital property;
Provide your consent to divulge the contents of your electronic communications to your legal personal representatives;
Authorise your legal personal representatives to access your computing devices, storage devices, accounts, and data; and
Permit your legal personal representatives to bypass, reset or recover your passwords on your computing devices and to decrypt your encrypted data, if desired.

What should you do with your master passwords and codes?
You don’t have to list your passwords in your estate planning documents. This would be a serious security risk. Instead, store your passwords securely and let your legal personal representatives know how to access them. We are able to store your top-level passwords and codes securely and in a manner that will only allow access should you become incapacitated or die.

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St George Security Alert

STG_security-alertFor quite some time now I have received on average about a call a week from these scammers . Before I hang up I tell the person calling that they are working for a scamming company and that they should quit and get an honest job. I received this from my bank about the scam.
Dear Thomas,
At St George, helping our customers avoid falling victim to scams is our top priority. We’d like to make you aware of a current phone scam targeting Australians.
The scam involves a caller posing as an employee of a large telco, utility provider or computer company. The caller will usually advise they are calling you because your PC has malicious software, help is needed to catch a criminal, or to recover an outstanding debt owed to a government body. Callers may become quite aggressive or threaten you with prosecution if you do not comply with their request.
Thomas, we strongly recommend you simply hang up if you receive this type of call. If you believe the call was legitimate, we recommend you return the call to the company using a trusted phone number found in the yellow pages or on the company’s website.
How this type of scam works:
The caller will generally ask you to install a piece of software onto your PC. The technical name is ‘remote access software’ and this software allows information, or even control of your computer to be shared remotely with another user. Once the software is installed, the other user may attempt to control your computer without your permission or knowledge.
The caller will ask you to sign into your Internet Banking to check your account balances, return deposited funds, pay a fee for their service or even purchase gifts cards. At this point you may not know the caller is controlling your computer.
You will now have an increased balance in your transaction account, giving the false impression that a deposit has been made. Callers will generally ask you to return this via internet banking, a money transfer agent or in cash.
Before making any payments or returning funds to the caller by internet banking, credit cards or cash, please thoroughly check all of your account transactions, including your credit cards. In reported cases of this scam, customers have had funds transferred unknowingly between their own accounts by the caller.
What should I do?
Remember, do not disclose your Internet Banking logon details or St.George Secure Code sent to your mobile to anyone.
Share information about these types of scams with your friends and family, especially those who may be more vulnerable to this type of crime.
Stop and consider the caller’s request – would the company which contacted me ask me to do this? It’s OK to ask for a second opinion from a friend or family member if someone contacts you unexpectedly, especially when the caller asks you to keep this a secret from anyone.
Register for Government alert services like staysmartonline.gov.au to keep up to date with current scams.
More information?
For further information please visit stgeorge.com.au/scams
Thank you for using St George Internet Banking.
Sincerely,
The St George Internet Banking Team