Scams aimed at older Victorians are not just a nuisance. They are an organised, well-funded form of theft that strips retirement savings, isolates victims from family, and leaves long-lasting damage. Our newsroom has tracked the patterns reported through Scamwatch, the Australian Federal Police and Victorian community legal services, and the picture is clear: the over-65 cohort is being targeted with growing sophistication.
If you have an older parent, grandparent or neighbour, the single most useful thing you can do this week is sit down with them and talk through the four scam types below.
Why older Victorians are in the crosshairs
Scammers chase money, time and trust. Older Australians often have all three. Many have superannuation balances, paid-off homes and modest investment portfolios. Many also live alone, take phone calls from unknown numbers, and were raised in an era when a caller claiming to be from the bank was almost certainly from the bank.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which runs the Scamwatch service, has consistently reported that Australians aged 65 and over lose more money per scam than any other age bracket. The losses are not always reported. Shame, embarrassment and a fear of looking incapable in front of adult children stop a lot of victims from coming forward. Our team hears the same story repeatedly: by the time the family finds out, the money has already moved offshore.
The “Hi Mum” text scam
This one is brutal in its simplicity. A message arrives, usually on WhatsApp or SMS, from an unknown number. It opens with “Hi Mum” or “Hi Dad”, explains that the sender has lost or broken their phone, and asks the parent to message back on the new number. Within a few exchanges the “child” needs urgent help paying a bill or a tradesperson because their banking app is locked on the old device.
The transfer requested is rarely huge on its own. A few thousand dollars. By the time the parent rings their actual son or daughter, the money has cleared into a money-mule account and been moved on.
The defence is a single household rule: if a family member ever messages from a new number asking for money, you call the old number first. No exceptions.
Romance scams
Romance scams are the most financially devastating category we see. The Australian Institute of Criminology has reported losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars nationally each year, with older widowed and divorced Australians significantly over-represented in the victim group.
The pattern is consistent. The “match” appears on a dating site or, increasingly, in a Facebook friend request from a plausible-looking profile. The relationship is built carefully over weeks or months. The person is always overseas, on an oil rig, in the military, or working for the United Nations. Eventually there is a crisis. Medical bills. A frozen account. A customs fee. The asks escalate.
What makes romance scams hard to disrupt is that the victim is often emotionally invested by the time anyone else notices. Telling someone in the middle of one that they are being conned rarely works. A gentler approach is to ask whether the person has ever video-called the partner, whether the partner has ever met any family member, and whether any of the money is recoverable if the relationship ended tomorrow.
Investment scams
Investment scams have shifted from cold-call boiler rooms to slick websites, fake celebrity endorsements and cloned brokerage platforms. Many imitate well-known Australian banks or fund managers. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission maintains a list of unlicensed entities and warnings, and we strongly recommend checking it before any older relative transfers money to an “advisor” they found online.
Cryptocurrency investment scams are the fastest-growing category. The dashboard the victim sees showing their balance climbing is fake. The customer service representative is part of the scam. The withdrawal “tax” they are asked to pay before releasing funds is the final hook.
Remote-access tech support scams
The phone rings. The caller says they are from Telstra, Microsoft or NBN Co. They claim the home computer or modem has been compromised and ask the victim to install software so they can “fix” it. The software is a remote-access tool. Once installed, the scammer has the keyboard.
From there, they often log into the victim’s online banking, set up a new payee, and walk the victim through “verifying” a transfer that is in fact draining the account.
The rule is absolute: no legitimate company will ever phone you and ask you to install remote-access software. Hang up. If you are worried it might be real, ring the company back on a number from your bill, never the number the caller gave you.
Bank-impersonation phone scams
Bank-impersonation calls have become alarmingly convincing. The caller ID can be spoofed to display the bank’s actual phone number. The caller knows the victim’s name, sometimes their address, and uses scripts that mirror real fraud-team language.
The classic version goes like this: the “fraud team” has detected suspicious activity, and to keep the money safe the victim must transfer it to a “secure holding account”. There is no such thing. Banks will never ask you to move your money to a different account to protect it.
If you receive a call like this, end it. Wait two minutes for the line to fully clear, then ring the number on the back of your bank card. The Australian Banking Association has confirmed all major Australian banks operate this way.
How to talk to an older relative about scams
The conversation matters more than the content. Lectures backfire. So does anything that implies the older person is gullible or losing their faculties. A few approaches our newsroom has seen work:
- Make it about the scammers, not the victim. “These criminals are very sophisticated. They fool plenty of people who run businesses and university professors.”
- Share a story about someone else, or a news article, and ask what they would do.
- Offer to be a “second pair of eyes”. Agree that before any transfer over a set amount, they will ring you for a quick chat. No judgement, no questions, just a pause.
- Set up the bank’s payment-limit and confirmation-of-payee features together.
- Walk through the home computer and remove any remote-access tools that may already be installed.
Where to report
If you or a family member has been scammed, time matters. The first hour is the best hour for stopping a transfer.
- Ring the bank’s fraud line immediately. Every major Australian bank has a 24/7 number on the back of the card.
- Report to Scamwatch, run by the ACCC.
- If personal information has been compromised, contact IDCARE on 1800 595 160. IDCARE is Australia and New Zealand’s national identity and cyber support service and is free.
- Report cybercrime to ReportCyber, which feeds into law enforcement nationally.
- If a crime is in progress or there is an immediate safety concern, call 000.
For non-urgent reports of scam-related crime, Crime Stoppers Victoria can be reached on 1800 333 000. If the experience has been distressing, Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue is on 1300 22 4636. Older Victorians experiencing financial abuse from a family member or carer can contact Seniors Rights Victoria on 1300 368 821.
Our team will keep tracking the scam patterns we see emerging in Victoria. The single most important thing we can all do right now is have the conversation before the call comes.
