SMS Scammers

I woke up this morning to a text that almost gave me a heart attack.

Unknown number.

[AUSPOST] Your parcel has not been picked up after 7 business days and will be returned to sender. (Link).

“What the f—?!”

I didn’t click on the link. I went to my Auspost app. Tracked parcel… awaiting collection from parcel locker. The exact date it was delivered. I’ve still got more than a few business days until that expiry.

“Is this a scam?!” I couldn’t take any chances. Immediately deleted the message.

Should probably have blocked, then deleted, but I don’t want to accidently ring that number.

It was earlier than I had planned, for a trip to the post office, but I washed my face and brushed my teeth anyway, and made it immediately over there.

Groggy and annoyed, I got to my parcel locker, launched the QR code in the app, scanned it, the locker opened, and my parcel was there. Pressed “finished” on the parcel locker screen and felt immediate relief.

How can they get away with it?! It is so incredibly frustrating. I’m relieved that I didn’t fall for this, but I’m very worried about others who may not have had the same instincts in that immediate moment of reading the SMS.

A very short and quick Google and I have found that Australia Post is also aware of these scams, there are screen shots of what these texts look like, as well as what the link leads to - a fake Australia Post website where they’ll collect more sensitive information including passwords and financial institution details.

This is really, the lowest of the low…

I’ve made my Tik Tok and I still can’t stop thinking about it. This is my morning’s hyper focus. I really wish I could broadcast this out so that everyone that is good and innocent can be aware and avoid these types of scams.

In my career experience with pervious employers, the company has paid for staff training about cybersecurity basics. It’s not really anything you can’t find on Google or YouTube either, but perhaps just not consolidated as succinctly.

Stuff like this absolutely ruins any technofile’s aspirations of aiding and bettering society through technology. It breeds not only cynicism but also fear. It fuels the nature absolutists to get off the grid and not wish to participate.

And the worst consequence, of course, the people who’ve lost their entire savings or huge chunk of it to these thieves.

How are we going to better our society? How are these scammers even being educated enough to know how to code and develop these strategies?

When we talk about the digital divide between those technologically fluent and those less so, isn’t it usually people in higher socio-economic situations that learn coding?

We need our governments to do better. We need more funding for our youth and anyone willing to learn, to be well equipped with the language of technology.

The billions of dollars being poured into the armed services and military and security equipment - shouldn’t that also include cyber security programs for local citizens?

Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google - even Zoom - y’all gotta pick up some slack here too. Not only for profits, but for cyber safety across countries and bandwidths.

If we don’t feel safe, we’re not even going to log on or log in. So ultimately it affects profits too.

I've since seen these scams even being reported on in our local news. It's unfortunate that everyday people are being scammed out of their hard earned money. We've gotta find more solutions.