ASIC warns of scammers approaching Registry customers
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has received reports that scammers have been using look-alike domains to pretend to be ASIC and approach Registry customers via email.
The emails ask Registry customers to pay fees and give personal information to renew their business or company name. These emails often have a link that requests your ASIC user names and passwords and may infect your computer with malware if you click the link.
An email is probably a scam and is not from ASIC if it:
- asks you to make a payment over the phone
- asks you to make a payment to receive a refund
- asks you for your credit card or bank details directly by email or phone
- asks you to pay fees that are different to the fees on ASIC’s website
- arrives outside of ASIC’s timeframes – ASIC will only issue a renewal notice 30 days before your renewal date. You can search for your business name on our register and if it’s outside ASIC’s usual timeframe, it might be a scam.
Sometimes scams will try to use very similar looking email addresses to ASIC’s.
If you would like to notify ASIC of a potential scam email, you can forward the entire email to ReportASICEmailFraud@asic.gov.au.
Below is an example of what a scam email could look like: