How to spot a scam email or phone call

Almost every scam that reaches you, whether by email, text message or phone call, is built the same way. Once you can see the shape of it, they become much easier to spot.

This is not about being clever with technology. It is about recognising a pattern.

First, the thing worth knowing

Scams are not aimed at gullible people. They are written by professionals, tested on hundreds of thousands of targets, and refined until they work. They are specifically designed to catch careful, intelligent adults at a moment when they are distracted.

If one has caught you before, that tells you nothing about your intelligence. It tells you that you were busy.

The six giveaways

1. It is urgent

Your account will be closed today. The payment failed and the service stops tonight. There is a warrant out and you must act now.

Urgency is the single most reliable sign, because it does the scammer’s most important job: it stops you thinking. A real bank, a real government department and a real utility will all still be there tomorrow, and none of them will lose your business because you took an hour to check.

If a message is pushing you to act immediately, that alone is reason enough to slow down. Urgency is the tell.

2. It wants an unusual payment

Gift cards. Bitcoin. A bank transfer to a “safe account”. Vouchers from the supermarket.

No legitimate organisation on earth has ever been paid in iTunes cards. Not the tax office, not the police, not Telstra, not your bank. If the payment method is odd, the whole thing is fake, and you can stop reading right there.

3. It asks you to keep it quiet

“Do not discuss this with bank staff.” “This is a confidential investigation.” “Your family might not understand.”

This one is nasty, because it is aimed squarely at isolating you from the people who would notice something was wrong. No genuine organisation will ever ask you to hide a transaction from your own family or from the staff at your own bank.

4. The address is not quite right

Look at the actual sender address, not the display name. Anyone can put “Commonwealth Bank” as a display name.

You are looking for small wrongness: commbank-secure.net instead of commbank.com.au, a company name with an extra letter, or an address ending in something unrelated entirely. On a phone the address is often hidden and you have to tap the sender’s name to see it.

5. It is generic where it should be specific

“Dear Customer” from a bank you have been with for thirty years. A parcel notification that does not say what you ordered. An account warning that does not name the account.

Real organisations know who you are and generally say so.

6. It arrived out of nowhere

You did not order a parcel. You do not bank with that bank. You have not applied for a refund. The message is about something that has no connection to anything you have done.

The one rule that covers everything

If you remember nothing else, remember this:

Never use the contact details in the message. Look them up yourself.

If the email says your bank needs you, do not click the link and do not ring the number in the email. Ring the number on the back of your own card, or type the bank’s address into your browser yourself.

If a caller says they are from the tax office, hang up. Find the tax office number independently, and ring it back.

This works because the entire scam depends on you using their channel. The moment you go and find the real organisation yourself, the scam collapses. It costs you five minutes and it defeats essentially every version of this.

A genuine organisation will never be offended by this. If somebody objects to you hanging up and calling back, you have your answer.

The specific ones going around

“Microsoft” or “Telstra” ringing about a virus. They do not do this. Neither company monitors your computer, and neither will ever ring you unprompted about a problem. Hang up.

A text about a parcel. Usually claiming a delivery failed and asking for a small fee. Australia Post does not charge you by text to redeliver.

A message from your child or grandchild on a new number. “Hi Mum, I dropped my phone, this is my new number.” Then, shortly after, a request for money. Always ring the old number, or a family member, before sending anything.

Someone from your bank warning of fraud. They will sometimes ask you to move money to a “safe account”. Banks never do this. There is no such thing as a safe account.

If you are not sure

Ask somebody. That is the entire advice.

Ring a family member, ask a friend, or ring me. I would genuinely rather take ten calls about messages that turn out to be perfectly genuine than one from somebody who has been quietly worrying for a fortnight.

Nobody will think less of you for checking. Checking is exactly the right instinct, and the people who check are the people who do not get caught.

If it has already happened

Do not wait, and do not sit with it because you are embarrassed. The first hour matters more than anything else that follows. There is a separate guide on what to do if you have been scammed, and it is worth reading before you need it.