A handy website to avoid SCAM - (Reverseaustralia.com)

Facebook should be doing much much more to shut down these online/crypto scams.

These days on Facebook/Instagram, there are plenty of ads touting the Australian Crypto Convention (which is a real event). Facebook has also made it so easy to "sign up" as well. One click and auto-fill and the advertiser will have your email, name, and phone number.

See Pic1 for example... The ad looks real enough but if you look at the advertiser at the top, it doesn't add up.

Yours truly has signed up to the "AusCryptoCon" a few times already. Kept on falling for the same trick. Stupid me.....

Invariably, someone would call. I must say the scammers are getting better. Once, a chap with a British accent called and claimed to be Constable Lawson from Heathrow Airport. A person was arrested in London and the person had a hard disk drive with my personal details. Constable Lawson kindly inquired if my crypto wallet was compromised. He was concerned if I had other crypto wallets as well. How kind of him.

And then I had 2 calls claiming to be from the Australian Federal Police. They started the call with their badge number, case reference number and told me to have to go to local police station to leave a statement etc etc.... Same story. My personal details had been found in a HDD somewhere or online. One of them even sent me an official looking email with the Federal Police letterhead (but the email address was NOT afp.gov.au).

One day, I actually went to the local police station and the police looked up the police database and confirmed there was nothing outstanding concerning me.

Furthermore, I had an IT security professional from Ledger. Another kind IT security expert from Bybit called as well.

Guess the point is the scammers are getting better and better.

The truth is when someone calls, how do we really verify they are who they are ? 

I stumbled upon the reverseaustralia.com website. The website doesn't look that flashy but it is useful. Enter a phone number and it can track the phone listing. It can also confirm if other people have been searching for that same number as well. In which case, it is likely a scam. See Pic3. Interesting that the scammers are running the same script from the same number.

Do be careful out there with your personal details. And Facebook should lift its game in shutting down these "scammy" ads.