Shipping from USA to Australia

[tillmanr]

I have sold two large commercial entities over the last couple of years. Totally digital.

[onetrack]

There's been a sizeable number of people in Australia who have lost their homes to cunning African scammers, who are part of major criminal gangs, and they have well-educated and qualified people amongst them, who have IT and legal skills, and they can pass themselves off as genuine people - even to the extent of calling the suckers when they've become suspicious, and these callers have managed to persuade the suckers, they're genuine!

 

In W.A., you cannot transfer the ownership of property without presenting the original Transfer of Land document to Landgate, either in person or by post. Landgate will not accept any land transfer documents via email or electronic form.

The reason for this is, the State Govt was obliged to fork out several millions in compensation to property owners who had been scammed out of their properties. 

 

https://www.landgate.wa.gov.au/land-and-property/property-ownership/buying-and-selling-property/?accordion=accordion262e0eddf8f341419058efd7bde69347

 

[tillmanr]

NSW and Victoria now digital titles.

[onetrack]

That's nothing but an invite for IT criminals to find holes in the system for financial reward. There's not a single IT system that hasn't been hacked or scammed. Hacking for ransom monies was a favourite a little while ago. Manheim Auctions was hacked, all their customer details acquired, their website was locked down and the hackers demanded $30M to unlock it. Manheim refused to pay, and had to build an entire new auction website from scratch.

 

Unless the company/Govt dept uses two or three step verification with their system, then their customers are open to being ripped off with fraud.

[tillmanr]

They do have verification processes in action.

[BrendAn]

3 minutes ago, onetrack said:

That's nothing but an invite for IT criminals to find holes in the system for financial reward. There's not a single IT system that hasn't been hacked or scammed. Hacking for ransom monies was a favourite a little while ago. Manheim Auctions was hacked, all their customer details acquired, their website was locked down and the hackers demanded $30M to unlock it. Manheim refused to pay, and had to build an entire new auction website from scratch.

 

Unless the company/Govt dept uses two or three step verification with their system, then their customers are open to being ripped off with fraud.

i can only speak for myself . i have done more digital contracts than i can remember.  finance and insurance. i can honestly say there has never been a security issue with any of them.

as far as selling property to scammers a lot of the problem is greed. some people are gullible once the big carrot is waved and they forget to do their due diligence.

same with people desperate for a companion give away fortunes every year, quite often to people that don't exist. 

[facthunter]

It will WORK till it doesn't. Past performance is no SURE indication of FUTURE security. EVERYTHING that CAN be corrupted will be.  IT HAPPENS ALL the Time. People KNOW everything that you do (If they wish to). Nev

[kgwilson]

The verification of bank account information is not done by email or web based information. Often you need to ring a trusted phone number, get info via text, check numbers with the bank etc or obtain a hard copy printout. Scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. 

 

When getting info from my solicitor via email, I got an email from a scammer using their logo. It was obvious to me but wouldn't be to many people.

[BrendAn]

You can do everything by snail mail but it still gets uploaded when it gets to the receiver. You just get a false sense of security thinking your 1800s method is safe.

 

[BrendAn]

2 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

The verification of bank account information is not done by email or web based information. Often you need to ring a trusted phone number, get info via text, check numbers with the bank etc or obtain a hard copy printout. Scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. 

 

When getting info from my solicitor via email, I got an email from a scammer using their logo. It was obvious to me but wouldn't be to many people.

 I had to physically ring ANZ and let them know I am overseas so I can use my bank. Otherwise they automatically block the account when I try to do a transaction from America.

[turboplanner]

3 hours ago, skippydiesel said:

Accepting digital documents is still very patchy.😈

BS. There are a few who dig their toes in and yes, the skeletpn staff/staff doing other jobs will help them, but it's like the banks; the old dears kept on walking in so they closed them.

[onetrack]

The scammers don't necessarily work on the "greed factor". How would you like to find out your investment property had been sold without your knowledge, and the funds disappeared into some 3rd world banking system?

 

This happened several times in Perth, around 10-12 years ago. Fortunately, due to some good work on behalf of the W.A. Police, the AFP, and the South African Police, some of the scammers were nailed.

Despite all the knowledge about scammers, I reckon about every third business owner I speak to, has been scammed by a simple email -  that has come from an intercepted email from a regular customer of that business - advising that bank details have changed, and "please pay to this new bank account number". Hardly a single business owner questioned the bank details change, and they lost heaps.

 

My nephew was scammed out of $30,000 in this manner - thought he was paying a business bill, and didn't find out he'd paid scammers, until the real business asked for payment. Real estate agents here were conned time and time again, with fraudulent official documentation, and changes to emails and bank account numbers, none of which was verified by the recipients.

 

https://www.consumerprotection.wa.gov.au/system/files/migrated/sites/default/files/atoms/files/issue30.pdf

[onetrack]

Quote

When getting info from my solicitor via email, I got an email from a scammer using their logo. It was obvious to me but wouldn't be to many people.

Well that shows either his computers, or yours, have been hacked, and emails intercepted. How else would they find your email address as his client? Nothing is secure on the internet, Russians and North Koreans are making billions annually out of internet fraud, and they are extremely sophisticated.

It's reported the North Koreans have a complete department set up specifically for initiating scams. They even scammed the Bank of Bangladesh out of $81M after they penetrated the SWIFT banking system.

[facthunter]

Not long ago I was well and truly scammed and they even got Money out of my bank. THAT PC is never to be connected to the Net and I'm pretty Careful.  Look what's Happening to OPTUS and Airlines. Nev

[skippydiesel]

2 hours ago, turboplanner said:

BS. There are a few who dig their toes in and yes, the skeletpn staff/staff doing other jobs will help them, but it's like the banks; the old dears kept on walking in so they closed them.

What is it with some people - You have had one experince , I have had another. This does not make your experince invalid  (BS?????) nor mine.

 

I recently applied for a federal security pass - The application accepted digital copies of origional documents BUT ALL origional documents then had to be viewed by  third party for verification.  This is not acceptance of digital documents.😈

[turboplanner]

48 minutes ago, skippydiesel said:

What is it with some people - You have had one experince , I have had another. This does not make your experince invalid  (BS?????) nor mine.

 

I recently applied for a federal security pass - The application accepted digital copies of origional documents BUT ALL origional documents then had to be viewed by  third party for verification.  This is not acceptance of digital documents.😈

Keep up the struggles; you'll get there.

Edited Sunday at 08:16 AM by turboplanner

[kgwilson]

4 hours ago, onetrack said:

Well that shows either his computers, or yours, have been hacked, and emails intercepted. How else would they find your email address as his client? Nothing is secure on the internet, Russians and North Koreans are making billions annually out of internet fraud, and they are extremely sophisticated.

It's reported the North Koreans have a complete department set up specifically for initiating scams. They even scammed the Bank of Bangladesh out of $81M after they penetrated the SWIFT banking system.

Correct. I use Thunderbird Email client which allows you to  to view and download the message source which lists the trail including the email addresses, hosts and servers etc. I provided this to my solicitor who in turn sent details to their website providers. Whether anything could or has been done I don't know. It was the solicitors email that had been infiltrated and that is where they got my email address. They just lifted the logo off the website. The email asked me to deposit money into their fake trust account.

 

About a year ago I got an email demanding money in the form of crypto currency. They had managed to get my email password & got in to my mobile phone account but got stopped there. I changed all my passwords & set up 2 factor identification & had to get a new sim for the phone but other than a lot of effort I lost nothing. About $2.74 billion was lost to scammers in Australia in 2023. Reported scams this year amount to $210 million so far but not all are reported. You can see the stats on the scamwatch web site.

[Moneybox]

Digital is great however some such as my accountant live in the dark ages. We’ve bought and sold several properties with almost all documents filled in and signed digitally. The mines department also have quite a lot done digitally however they never really got the gist of it, they still need a signed paper copy attached as a PDF. Those government IT guys are not quite up to speed.

[facthunter]

a DIGIT is a Finger and didn't the Duke say "Finger OUT"?  Nev