The National Anti-Scam Centre Scams Awareness Week runs 26 to 30 August with the theme ‘Share a story, stop a scam’.

This annual reminder provides a perfect opportunity to check how scam aware you are and share your knowledge with friends, family, colleagues, social networks and the community.

Since January nearly 80% of scams reported to us used emails. Scammers are progressively becoming much more sophisticated. The good news is that there are some simple things you can do to avoid falling victim to these fake ATO scams.

Here are some hints on what to look out for:

• Don’t click on any links in a message asking you to login to a government service such as myGov. We recently removed all hyperlinks in unsolicited outbound SMS. So, if you’ve received such a message containing a link claiming to be from the ATO, it’s a scam.
• Be careful of requests for personal or financial information, especially if they claim to be urgent or time sensitive. We will never ask for passwords, account numbers, or other sensitive data via email, SMS or by phone.
• Avoid downloading or opening attachments in suspicious emails. They can infect your computer and compromise the security of sensitive business information that can be stolen and later used to commit fraud.
• Look out for unusual transactions or interactions on your accounts. If you’re ever unsure if the contact is legitimately from us, don’t engage with it and verify it. You can also look at our scam alerts.

During Scams Awareness Week, let’s share our scam stories and help each other to do the same. The more we hear, the better equipped we are to prevent Australians from being scammed.

By reporting a scam to us, we can use the information provided to alert the community so others see the warning signs and avoid these scams themselves. We can also take steps to take down any fraudulent or impersonator websites to further protect the community from these scams.

If you see a suspicious email claiming to be from us, send it to reportscams@ato.gov.au or visit ato.gov.au/scams for more information.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section. We will be happy to answer all your queries.