Hello everyone.
With the beginning of the new financial year, there always seems to be an increase in fake emails, texts or social media telling you to click on a link or go to a fake website. I’d say I’m deleting at least one text message a day!
Scamwatch.gov.au tell us scams are a growing problem, with Australians of all ages losing over $318 million in 2024. 2025 is tracking even higher, with over $118 million lost in the first 4 months of 2025.
Scammers are getting more sophisticated in their look and feel. They’re trying to get your personal details to steal your cash and to use your identity to ruin your credit and get access to your services.
My best advice? Remain vigilant. When you get correspondence about myGov, Centrelink or Medicare, ask yourself – is this genuine?
Signs of a scam
There are some signs you can look out for to help you spot a possible scam. These include:
- an unexpected email, text message or phone call
- a sense of urgency or an unreasonable deadline
- a promise you are owed money, or a threat of fines.
We’ll never ask you to:
- Pay or transfer us money to get a payment or benefit.
- Give us remote access to your computer or device.
- Reply by email or text message to any electronic message we send you.
If you’re not sure if information you’ve seen online about government payments or services is real, visit our genuine website, servicesaustralia.gov.au to learn more.
If you think you’ve been scammed and are worried someone might be able to access your myGov account or Centrelink, Medicare and Child Support records, call our Scams and Identity Theft Helpdesk on 1800 941 126.
- They can check for suspicious activity and add security measures to prevent unauthorised access.
- It’s also helping prevent other people from falling victim to the same scam.
If it’s another type of scam, you should report it to ScamWatch and the relevant department it relates to, like the Australian Taxation Office.
Some practical tips to protect your online accounts
- Treat your personal information with the same security you have for your keys and wallet.
- Be careful of what you share on social media and online forums.
- Use different passwords or passphrases for different services – don’t use the same one over and over.
- When using myGov, use the official myGov app or enter my.gov.au into your trusted internet browser.
- Set up a myGov passkey as a more secure way to sign in to myGov. Once you’ve created a passkey you can turn off your myGov password to improve your account security.
We take cyber security very seriously and have robust protections in place on our systems, including myGov. This includes monitoring and fraud detection systems in place to protect customers.
If you’ve found a scam impersonating Services Australia or myGov, you can email it to [email protected] so we can review and take down the fake sites.
Until next time.
Hank Jongen
General Manager
Services Australia
Also read: Discover the top holiday scam hotspots—and how to avoid them
I have recently received a few Scam Centrelink Emails, that “required me to update my details, or my Payment would stop”.
The Email Address was not a “gov.au” address, therefore I Checked my MyGov Account, and there were No Messages, I then Forwarded the Emails to “[email protected]” and also to Scamwatch.
I do the same with the Scam ATO Emails. Emails forwarded to “[email protected]”
Doesn’t matter how many times you warn people, put extra security in place there will always be those that get caught because they don’t do due diligence etc.
As my father and grandfather always kept telling me way back in the 1950’s and 60’s. There’s one born every minute because you can’t fix stupid.
How ironic, that when I just turned on my PC, that in my spam inbox my old email address was showing a scam email telling me that there was an ATO tax message awaiting me. I doubt it very much. As usual there was a link to click on, of which I did not and just deleted it. Scumbags.