Several scams with the victims being Greek elderly have been reported by constituents to the office of Jenny Mikakos, Victoria’s Shadow Minister for Children and Young Adults.
In what is known as ‘rebate scam’, Greek elderly were contacted with claims they were owed money by the government after their pension had been mistakenly underpaid. After being asked to provide personal details, it was required from pensioners to make small payments that would release the owed payment for them.
Ms Mikakos, member for Northern Metropolitan, told Neos Kosmos she wants to raise awareness in the Greek community about scams, as she believes that elderly from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds with limited proficiency in English are more susceptible to fall victims of scamming.
“These scams are highly prolific, particularly when it comes to people whose English language skills are very limited, which makes them more vulnerable to being exploited. Younger people are accustomed to hearing about internet scams. But when it comes to the elderly, people are being either written to or more alarmingly now they are receiving telephone calls,” Mikakos told Neos Kosmos.
“For example, I had a constituent who had received an unsolicited phone call from a person claiming to be from the tax office. He was told that as a pensioner he was underpaid by the government, and was owed money by the tax office. He was asked for personal details. After I called the phone number that was provided to the victim, to interrogate the person and to ask which department he was from, it became clear that it was a scam and that the person was not in any way associated with government.”
Last week, Neos Kosmos wrote about senior citizens from diverse backgrounds falling victim to scams. According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Targeting Scams report for 2012, the level of scams activity in Australia continues to rise. Contrary to popular belief, the ACCC report found that young people and the elderly were not over-represented in contacts.
However, elderly from diverse backgrounds who fall victim to scams seem to turn to their community organisations to report scams and not to government agencies. Additionally, as a media person for the ACCC told Neos Kosmos, the commission statistics are not broken down by ethnicity – something that makes scam victims from diverse backgrounds ‘invisible’ to government statistics.
“Sometimes government agencies don’t turn their mind to unique issues that are being faced by migrant communities, especially the elderly migrants who have poor English language skills or even pure literacy skills in their own native language and might find it difficult to understand written material. That’s why it is very important that more efforts in different ethnic media to educate our elderly migrants are made by Consumers Affairs and other government agencies.”
Ms Mikakos has recently contacted Consumer Affairs Victoria to urge them to do more in ethnic media in order to raise awareness and to educate ethnic communities.
“A lot of people hear about this information through English language media, but I am concerned that some of the more vulnerable members of these communities who don’t speak English well and are not hearing about scams and warnings – may fall victims of scams,” Mikakos said.
In their response to Ms Mikakos, Consumer Affairs Victoria stated they will develop a media release for distribution to ethnic media, as well as translate scams information for their website. The information and videos addressing the most common consumer scams – including the scam reported by Ms Mikakos’ constituent, known as the ‘rebate scam’ – are currently available only in English.
“I am concerned that the problem is larger than I might have experienced through my constituents. People might have become victims of these scams but might have only spoken to their family about it. They should be very careful about providing their personal details, as it can lead to identity fraud, or the more common one – rebate scam.”
“If they are not certain, my advice to them is to go and ask the Tax Office or other government agencies directly, to call back on a direct number – not the number that someone gave them.”
Ms Mikakos encouraged Greek community organisations to become aware of the scams issue and to let government agencies know when a problem occurs.
“I would also encourage people to get in contact with me, if they are experiencing issues that are unique to the Greek elderly. The scam issue might be potentially a much bigger problem. It is a great deal of concern for our elderly as scammers are often very convincing.”
To report a scam, contact Consumer Affairs Victoria on 1300 55 81 81 (or 131 450 for Interpreter Service). To find out more about rebate scams, visit http://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/resources-and-education/scams/consumer-sc…