Kim Ellison had a simple plan for retirement – to get away from the city, somewhere not too expensive but with enough room that her children and grandchildren could come and stay.
She and her husband bought a block of land on Russell Island, off the coast of Brisbane, and prepared to move a lifetime’s worth of belongings over from the mainland.
“I wanted a shipping container so we could bring our possessions over and then start setting up a home,” she said.
“Looking through Facebook, I actually came across this one, it had the three roller doors, 40 foot – I thought that would be easy to load up with the three roller doors, and very handy to convert into a home.”
She received an invoice from the company for $4500, paid it and waited for it to arrive.
But it never did.
Ms Ellison was scammed.
Hundreds of Australians have been preyed upon by what appears to be a global network of operators taking advantage of limited supply, coupled with soaring demand from downsizers like Ms Ellison, as well as COVID-19 sea-and-tree changers looking to create tiny homes.
According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Scamwatch data, the container scam is growing rapidly.
The ACCC said consumers lost $1.8 million to shipping container scams in 2022, with 499 incidents reported.
That is up from $782,000 in losses in 2021, following a global shortage of the product.
“That is more than a doubling of the scam reports [and] we have more than a doubling of the losses,” ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.
“The scammers see the areas of great [consumer] need, of great vulnerability.
“They come in and … work to take advantage of people who, from a business perspective or a personal perspective, are vulnerable.”
After paying, Ms Ellison received an email saying her container would arrive in four to six days – but it did not.
She says she followed up over the phone and was given only excuses.
“Lots of phone calls, lots of excuses … it was always someone from overseas. The phone seemed to click each time and [they’d say] ‘sorry, I can’t get hold of the container people today’, or ‘we’re having problems with the logistics.'”
Ms Ellison realised something was wrong when she received another email asking for a further $5000 for “refundable insurance” before the container could be delivered.
Instead of paying, she looked up the phone number of the Australian company listed on an invoice she was sent – Magellan Logistics.
“I rang [Magellan Logistics] and they said they’ve heard of this business going on and it’s actually ruining their good name, so I was like, ‘oh, I’m so sorry,'” she said.
Melissa Wraith works for Magellan Logistics.
The company is a freight and customs broker, but multiple Facebook pages have been set up in its name, purporting to sell shipping containers.
Ms Wraith said they had received so many calls from people like Ms Ellison that they reported the situation to Facebook multiple times.
“After all the reports that we made to Facebook, we’ve received no correspondence, no notification,” Ms Wraith said.
“If you report a scam, you receive nothing.”
Magellan Logistics said it also notified the Australian Cyber Security Centre, which forwarded the complaint to the local police in Broadmeadows, in outer Melbourne.
“I spoke with several different officers from that station, and a senior member of the force explained how much of this stuff is reported to them, how overwhelming it is for police to investigate it and how futile often because by the time it’s reported to them, that money’s already offshore.”
Victoria Police said it would not comment while the investigation was ongoing.
Scammers ‘pilfering’ legitimate photos
Magellan Logistics is not the only business affected.
The scammers sent Ms Ellison another invoice using a second Australian company’s logo.
The company address on the invoice is part of the same commercial block where a legitimate shipping container sales company – ABC Shipping Containers – operated until mid-2022.
“Our street number was 1517, and these guys had claimed that they were 1519, which actually doesn’t exist,” the company’s logistics coordinator, Kelly Hull, said.
“However, if you google 1519, it will take you straight to 1517, where it looks like there was a container park.”
Suspected scammers are also using ABC Shipping Containers’ photos on multiple Facebook pages.
“We obviously advertise online, we also pop up photos of containers that have been delivered by our subcontractors and these guys are just pilfering those, straight off the websites or Facebook,” she said.
“It’s really quite scary how legitimate these Facebook pages look compared to ours.”
Like Magellan Logistics, ABC Shipping has reported the situation to the social media platform.
“Almost every staff member in ABC [Shipping] has reported it to Facebook and not one of us has had a response back,” Ms Hull said.
“I think if you have been alerted to the fact that someone is [allegedly] illegally trading on your platform and they are scamming money off people then … and you do nothing, then yeah I think you absolutely are responsible because you’ve got the power to shut it down and you didn’t.”
Social media companies need to do more: ACCC
The ACCC does not currently have the power to force Facebook or other digital platforms to remove scam content.
It has called on the government to do something about the situation.
It wants new obligations placed on social media, including mandatory removal of scams and scammers from the platform, improving how users can report scams and more robust methods to guarantee businesses are who they say they are.
“Platforms should be legally required to take steps to verify the identity of certain business users, including advertisers and merchants, and particularly in relation to financial products – and investment scams are where the greatest losses are,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
Ms Cass-Gottelieb said the Magellan Logistics example highlighted the urgent need for change.
“We’re highly concerned about failure to take action and to respond,” she said.
Several suspected scam Facebook pages named in this story remained active until yesterday.
They were removed after the ABC contacted parent company Meta.
Meta declined to be interviewed but in a statement, a spokesperson said scammers presented an ongoing challenge and the company invests substantial resources in protecting against fake accounts.
“We’re committed to safeguarding the integrity of our services, and dedicate substantial resources and technology solutions to protect our community from fake accounts and other inauthentic behaviour.
“We have a dedicated reporting channel to take in all content that the ACCC is concerned about.”
In the meantime, if you are looking to buy a shipping container on Facebook, do some digging to ensure the offer is real – and that the business has not popped up online overnight.
“One way that you can tell is you can see how long they’ve been active on Facebook for, or how many likes they have and fortunately for us, these pages don’t have many, if any, likes and so that’s always a red hot tip to have a look for,” Kelly Hull said.
After their ordeal, Kim Ellison and her husband went old school to get their retirement plans back on track.
“I thought, ‘I’ve been done’ and I felt so bad because you only get one bite of the apple when you’re retired,” she said.
“We found a container and looked at it and touched it and felt it and shook hands with the man.
“And the truck arrived.”
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