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Would you hear the alarm bells?

April 2023

With scams becoming increasingly sophisticated, the Australian Banking Association (ABA) has launched a new ad campaign to help Australians ‘hear the alarm bells’ that something might be a scam.

The campaign highlights different types of scams, including bank impersonation, invoice and investment, sharing the warning signs of each and the steps you can take to protect yourself.

You can learn more about the campaign, including watching the scam scenario videos on the ABA website. 

The best way to protect yourself is to follow our 15 Top Tips:

Remember, banks will never:

• Call you and ask people to transfer funds to another account over the phone
• Contact you to ask for any account or personal details in an unsolicited text or email
• Ask for online banking passcodes or passwords over email, text or phone
• Ask for remote access to your devices
• Threaten you to take immediate action on an issue. 

You should never:

• Provide banking information, passwords or two-factor identification codes over the phone or via text to anyone even if you know them – contact the bank through official channels only
• Login to your online banking via links sent through email or text
• Click on suspicious emails, links or texts
• Transfer money unless you’re certain it’s going to the right person
• Provide personal information to anyone you don’t know personally unless you know it’s for a legitimate purpose.

Make sure you always:

• Pause to question the authenticity of a text message, an email, a call or a person who claims to be from a trusted organisation. If in doubt, call back on the publicly listed phone number before taking any action
• Register a PayID securely through your bank and not via a third party and use PayID where you can
• Set-up two factor authentication to protect your accounts and online banking
• Verbally validate an invoice or bill on a publicly sourced number and use PayID wherever possible
• Immediately report any suspicious activity directly to your bank.