![Sharon Claydon and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones in Newcastle this week talking about the government's crackdown on scams. Picture by Peter Lorimer Sharon Claydon and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones in Newcastle this week talking about the government's crackdown on scams. Picture by Peter Lorimer](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/HLS8hELXYzzpgPAWF8Wni5/2b98ad4a-ed6a-43dc-87e0-1ea01e850086.JPG/r0_0_6000_4000_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
It seems that an old scam, last seen around 2020, has raised its head again.
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The con goes something like this:
The target receives a text from an unknown number in the small hours of the night. The message claims to come from someone called Jake or Jacob and they say they're in trouble. In a few renditions, Jake is drunk and emotional, claiming that he has lost his phone or wallet or - in some more dramatic retellings - his clothes.
Sometimes, he claims he's calling from his mum's phone and that is how he got the target's number.
It's unclear what the scam is trying to achieve. Police told Topics this week that they had no reports of such phone calls or messages, but stories dating as far back as 2013 have been cropping up online all of which seem to match the theme.
If an offer seems too good to be true or suspicious, it probably is
- Sharon Claydon
Those who have spoken to 'Jake' have described him as being persistent and demanding, even crying on the phone, and many suspect that the fake call is intended to catch its targets off guard and steal private information. Attempts to call the scammer back on the same number that he contacts his targets lead to a dead line.
Australians lost more than $3 billion to scams in 2022, and police say that fraud is a growing problem in the state as scammers go online. The national scammer watchdog notes that text messages were among the most common ways that scammers contacted their targets last year. One in three scams were reported to have come over the phone, and social media cons were on the rise as Australians lost $80 million to online scammers last year.
But there are warning signs.
Text message scams are, for example, often from con artists claiming to be from the government, businesses you deal with or even your own family or friends, and can look surprisingly legitimate.
But the experts say be wary of texts that ask you to click a link, or phone calls that ask you for sensitive personal information.
SMS scams like 'Jake' try to catch their targets off guard with the urgency of their situation. It's similar to the "Hey Mum" texts of the past couple of years, where the bad guys disguise themselves as a child.
They might ask the target to send money, to contact them via another platform like What'sApp, or to click a link and log in to a website where they can steal information.
![Scammers are increasingly using text messages to contact their targets. File image. Scammers are increasingly using text messages to contact their targets. File image.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/n8uGJwMg95DiH9D4L9ShGa/a68a0f06-f724-4060-ac37-d42311955a8c.jpeg/r0_0_6500_4333_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The advice on these kinds of situations is always the same:
Don't respond, never share sensitive information unless you are able to independently verify the trusted source, and report the scammers when they come up.
For social media scams, the experts say always make sure the person who you speak with is who they say they are and be careful what information you share.
Never send money to a person you have only met online, and never send personal pictures of yourself to someone you have only met online, Scamwatch advises.
Last year, the federal government set up the National Anti-Scam Centre as part of its investment to combat scammers targeting Australians and the government says it has already seen some success.
Since the centre began, reported losses to scams reduced by 29 per cent compared with the same period in 2022, Newcastle MP Sharon Claydon said this week.
ASIC has also taken down 4220 investment scam websites, with another 540 in the works, Ms Claydon said. And early data in 2024 shows overall scam losses reported are around 40 per cent lower than the same period in 2023.
"Every day, scammers are ripping money out the pockets of hard-working Novocatrians," the MP said. "If an offer seems too good to be true or suspicious, it probably is."