Banking scam numbers increase

Online account phishing and other consumer banking fraud ranked fourth on the list of the most common types of scam in 2011.

An Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report on scam activity in 2011, released yesterday, is based on 83,000 reports and inquiries the ACCC received last year. That number is almost double what the ACCC received in 2010.

The most common scams were mass-marketed advance fee frauds (requests for upfront fees for goods that are never supplied), which made up 37 per cent of the total. Computer hacking fraud (usually a request for remote access to "fix" a virus) made up 23 per cent, while lottery scams made up 10 per cent, banking made up seven per cent and online auctions six per cent.

The ACCC has observed a shift from the internet and email to the telephone as the preferred method of scam delivery, assisted, in part, by the abuse of cheap, freely available voice-over-internet services.

The ACCC said telephone contact allowed for convincing personalised approaches. Almost 52 per cent of consumers reporting scams last year were approached by telephone.

Scam losses were worth $86 million - a 35 per cent increase on 2010 losses.

The ACCC said the big increase in the number of people reporting scam activity was due, in part, to heightened awareness, as a result of consumer education.

The most common banking scam is an email purporting to be from a legitimate financial institution asking for account details. These emails often provide links to fake websites that display convincing copies of genuine account log-in pages.

Once a scammer gets access to an online bank account they can use it to commit identity theft and fraud.

A recent twist on this standard phishing exercise involves the authentication messages that some banks send to account holders' mobile phones before they are able to make a payment to a new payee.

The ACCC said that last year scammers developed techniques to tap into these messages by sending a phishing email to gather the victim's mobile number, internet banking password and username.

The scammer could then use a scam phone to receive the victim's bank authentication messages.