Smishing Scam Hits After $90 Million Lottery

Smishing is a cyber scam whereby criminals try and get people to part with their hard-earned cash via SMS.

A day after the biggest lottery draw in Australian history, there has already been reports of people getting dodgy Smishing SMS’s telling them they have won a substantial amount of monies.

In one case a NSW’s woman received a message at midnight stating ” You have won AUD$123,000 please email your details to allow you to collect your winnings.” The phone number was +856 207349489, which is the international code for Laos.

What consumers are then asked to do in order to receive the money is pay a courier fee of $1000, which the scammers then pocket.

Australian Federal Police were not available for comment at the time of writing, and the NSW Lotteries Media department were busy dealing with enquiries regarding last night’s winners of the big jackpot.

Like any scam, if it is too good to be true it probably is, so if consumers receive a text message telling them of winnings for a draw or competition they did not enter, they should ignore the text and delete.