Taskforce to clamp down on scams

Western Australia will join forces with 18 agencies across Australia and New Zealand to combat consumer fraud and warn consumers about scams costing millions of dollars.

Consumer Protection Minister Michelle Roberts said the State Government's successful WA ScamNet service would play an important role in a four-week blitz starting today.

WA ScamNet will be part of the inaugural Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce comprising numerous consumer protection authorities across Australia.

"Email, letter and telephone scams involving fraud cost West Australians many thousands of dollars each year and have a devastating impact on their lives," Mrs Roberts said.

"The best protection against scammers is to send anything suspicious to the government's WA ScamNet service where it can be traced and then profiled as a warning for others."

The Minister said last year more than 24,000 email and letter scams were identified and targeted by WA ScamNet, which is an information website run by the WA Department for Consumer Protection.

The main scams identified in WA last year included:
- lottery scams;
- advance fee scams (such as Nigerian letter scams and pyramid schemes);
- email publishing scams which try to gain access to personal banking information; and
- cold calling scams offering cheap deals.