SCAMMERS claiming to be the ACT government have been reported to be asking people to pay traffic infringement notices via email.
Callers were advised that neither the ACT Government or ACT Police issue traffic or parking infringement notices via email and that they should be deleted.
“Scams can often look like the real thing and can catch people off guard, and I want to ensure that all Canberrans are alert to these scams,” Mr Snowden says.
It is often easy to spot scam emails and some tips for spotting a fake include:
· generic rather than personal greeting
· names of organisations that don’t exist
· poor quality presentation
· poor grammar and spelling
· overly official or forced language.
“Never send money or give credit card details, online account details or copies of personal documents to anyone you don’t know or trust,” he says.
“To protect yourself from scams you should not open suspicious texts, pop-up windows or emails. Delete the email immediately and consider running a virus scan of your computer in case the email is infected with a virus.
“To verify the identity of a suspicious email you may be able to do an online search but never use the contact details provided in the message sent to you,” Mr Snowden said.
More tips at scamwatch.gov.au
Anyone affected by an online scam and wishing to make a report for possible police investigation, visit the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network at acorn.gov.au
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![Teacher Vanessa Jones has been living in Higgins since 2001, and while she loves the area, she says she is “fed up” with the neglectful ACT government.
The Higgins shops have been completely abandoned, says Vanessa, preventing the opportunity for residents to have a community-centred space to socialise.
They only received bins nine months ago, she says, and requests for a water station and repairs to the bus station have gone unanswered.
“It’s very, very slow,” says Vanessa.
“I asked for the zebra crossing on Fullagar [Crescent] to be repainted, and we had to wait about six or nine months.
“That’s just such a long time… we pay a lot of rates.”
Vanessa says assistance from the government only seems to go to communities with time-rich and assertive communities, leaving places such as Higgins, where the majority of households have both adults working full-time and English may not be the first language of the family, at an automatic disadvantage.
“If you’ve got two people working, paying a mortgage, raising two or three kids, they don’t have the time,” says Vanessa.
Vanessa says the lack of attention quieter places such as Higgins is receiving is starting to look a lot like favouritism.
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