The email is well written. The letterhead belongs to a fund manager you have heard of. The document attached looks like a product disclosure statement, because it has been copied from one. The offer is a fixed term bond paying 6.8 per cent, which is better than your term deposit but not so much better that it sounds absurd.
You search the company name. The website comes up, complete with the right branding, and several of the links on it go to the genuine company’s pages. The Australian Financial Services licence number on the documents checks out on ASIC’s register, because it belongs to a real licensee.
Everything you have been told to check, you have checked. And the money still goes to organised criminals operating a call centre offshore.
This is the current state of investment fraud in Australia, and it is a long way from the crude scams of a decade ago. This guide explains the specific structures being used against retirees, what actually verifies an offer as opposed to what merely appears to, and what to do if money has already gone.
The numbers, and why this article is aimed at retirees
In 2025, Australians made more than 481,000 scam reports across Scamwatch, ReportCyber, the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange, IDCARE and ASIC. Around 274,000 of those involved a loss, and the total came to $2.18 billion, an increase of 7.8 per cent on the previous year. Investment scams alone accounted for $837.7 million.
The age distribution is the part worth pausing on. Australians aged 65 and over make up roughly 17.1 per cent of the population, and they accounted for 26.5 per cent of total reported losses.
That is not because older Australians are less careful. It is because they are the population with money that is accessible, decision making authority over it, and a life stage that generates exactly the events criminals look for: a superannuation lump sum, a maturing term deposit, a house sale, an inheritance, a bereavement. The targeting is deliberate and it is informed.
Why retirees are selected
- Accessible balances. Money in super becomes money in a bank account, and a bank account can be transferred from in minutes.
- Term deposit frustration. When cash returns feel inadequate, an offer at a few percentage points above them looks reasonable rather than suspicious. That is precisely why the fake rates are set where they are.
- Predictable triggers. Retirement, downsizing and bereavement are all visible or inferable, and all produce a lump sum.
- Time and courtesy. A generation that answers the phone and does not hang up on a polite caller is a generation that stays on a scripted call long enough for it to work.
- Isolation. Someone without an adviser, an accountant or a family member to run it past is someone with no second opinion.
The fake bond offer, step by step
Fake bond and fixed income offers are the single most effective structure used against Australian retirees, because they are pitched precisely at people trying to be conservative.
- You find them, or they find you. Through a search result, an online advertisement, an email, or a call that follows a form you filled in on a rate comparison website weeks earlier.
- The brand is borrowed. The offer uses the name and branding of a real bank, fund manager, or well known company. Scamwatch has documented cases using the branding of large Australian retailers offering supposed environmental or sustainability bonds.
- The website is a clone. It carries genuine branding, and some links deliberately point to the real company’s site to build confidence. It is optimised to appear in searches for investment terms.
- The documents look right. A product disclosure statement, an application form, an information memorandum. All copied, adapted, and professionally produced.
- The rate is credible. Not 30 per cent. Six to nine per cent, fixed, described as low risk or capital protected.
- The money goes elsewhere. The account you are asked to transfer to is not in the name of the institution being impersonated. This is the point at which the whole thing usually becomes visible, and it is the step people most often skip.
- Sometimes there is a payment. A small interest payment arrives on schedule, which is what turns a $20,000 investment into a $200,000 one.
One operation of this kind was reported to have taken almost $8 million from Australians, using fake bond offers, virtual offices at prestigious CBD addresses in several capital cities, and offshore call centres. It appeared on ASIC’s Investor Alert List and became part of a federal police investigation. These are businesses, with staff, scripts and premises.
Cloned firms: when the licence number is genuine
The most sophisticated version does not invent a licensee. It impersonates one.
Criminals take the name, Australian Financial Services licence number and registered details of a genuine licensed firm, often a small one, and use them on their own materials. When you check the AFSL number on ASIC’s register, it comes back valid, because it is. The licensee is real. It simply has nothing to do with the people contacting you.
ASIC has warned specifically that a cursory licence check is no longer sufficient for this reason. The defence is not checking whether the number exists. It is checking whether the people contacting you are the people the number belongs to, which means contacting the licensee independently, on details you found yourself, rather than any detail supplied in the offer.
This is the single most important habit in the article. Every contact detail in a scam is controlled by the scammer, including phone numbers that appear to be Australian landlines and email domains that differ from the real one by a single character.
Four others worth recognising
Deepfake endorsement advertising
ASIC warned in August 2026 that criminals are using generative AI to produce fake videos, fabricated news articles and bogus endorsements. Senior politicians, well known business figures and respected finance commentators have all been impersonated in Australian campaigns, with reports to Scamwatch linking the most copied figures to millions of dollars in losses in the 2026 financial year.
The pattern is consistent. An advertisement leads to what looks like a news article, which leads to a registration form, which leads to a phone call from a persuasive person. The video is fabricated. So is the article.
Comparison site lead harvesting
Some fake comparison and rate tables exist to collect contact details rather than to compare anything. The call comes weeks later, when the form is forgotten, and it therefore feels unsolicited in a way that lowers suspicion rather than raising it.
Coordinated share promotions
Groups on messaging platforms promote a small listed stock, the price rises as members buy, the organisers sell, and the price collapses. Unlike most investment fraud, real shares are actually purchased, which makes it harder to recognise as a scam while it is happening.
Recovery scams
This one is directed specifically at people who have already lost money. Someone makes contact offering to recover the funds, sometimes claiming to be from a law firm, a regulator or a government body, and asks for a fee or for identity documents.
Victim lists are traded between criminal groups. If you have been scammed once, assume you will be approached again. No legitimate agency charges an upfront fee to recover scam losses.
What actually verifies an offer
In order, and none of these takes long.
- Stop. Nothing legitimate is lost by waiting a week. Urgency is a sales technique, and in this context it is the most reliable single indicator that something is wrong.
- Find the contact details yourself. Search independently, or use a document you already had. Never use a phone number, email address or link contained in the offer.
- Call the licensee and ask. If a firm is genuinely offering this, they will confirm it. If they have been cloned, they will want to know.
- Check ASIC’s registers. Confirm the licence exists, and confirm the entity name and details match exactly what you have been given. A mismatch in the registered name is decisive.
- Check the Moneysmart Investor Alert List. ASIC publishes companies it has concerns about. Absence from the list does not mean an offer is safe, but presence on it settles the matter.
- Check the Financial Advisers Register if an individual is advising you. Our guide on how to check an adviser’s registration and track record walks through this properly.
- Check the bank account name. Money for a bond issued by a major institution goes to an account in that institution’s name. If the account is in a different name, an individual’s name, or offshore, stop.
- Check AFCA membership. Australian financial services licensees must belong to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. It is quickly verified.
- Tell one other person. An adviser, an accountant, an adult child, a friend. Criminals work hard to keep the conversation private, and describing an offer out loud to someone else is remarkably effective at exposing it.
Scamwatch summarises the same discipline in three words: stop, check, protect. Stop before sharing money or personal information. Check who you are really dealing with, using contact details you find yourself. Protect yourself and others by reporting to your bank, to cyber.gov.au and to Scamwatch.
Red flags worth knowing by heart
- You were contacted rather than the other way round.
- The return is above term deposit rates but described as low risk or capital guaranteed. Higher return means higher risk, always, without exception.
- You are asked to act before a deadline, or told the allocation is nearly full.
- The payment account is not in the name of the company issuing the investment.
- You are discouraged from involving your adviser, accountant or family, or told the opportunity is confidential.
- You are asked to install software so they can help you set up the account.
- The email domain differs slightly from the real one, or documents contain small inconsistencies in company names or numbers.
- You are asked to pay a fee, tax or release payment before you can withdraw your own funds.
- The offer arrived after you filled in an online form about rates or investments.
The high return point deserves emphasis, because it is the one piece of financial theory that reliably protects people. Genuine capital stable returns sit close to what governments and banks pay. Anything materially above that is taking risk, and any offer describing itself as both high yielding and safe is misrepresenting itself, whether or not it is criminal. Our guide on whether to invest or hold cash sets out the honest trade off.
If money has already gone
Move quickly, and do not spend time on self recrimination first. Speed matters and blame does not.
- Contact your bank immediately and ask them to attempt to stop or recall the payment. Some funds are recoverable if reported fast.
- Stop all contact with the people involved. Do not send further money to release funds, cover fees or pay taxes. That request is always part of the scam.
- Report it. To Scamwatch, to ReportCyber at cyber.gov.au, and to ASIC. Reporting feeds the takedown work that removes these websites, and thousands have been removed through it.
- Contact IDCARE if identity documents were shared. They are the national identity and cyber support service and the help is free.
- Change passwords and enable two factor authentication, particularly on email, banking and your superannuation account.
- Consider a complaint to AFCA if a bank or licensed firm was involved in the transaction and you believe they failed to act appropriately.
- Ignore recovery offers. Anyone who contacts you offering to get the money back for a fee is running the second scam.
One more thing, and it matters more than the list above. These operations are run by professionals with scripts, training and psychological expertise, and they succeed against accountants, lawyers and former bank managers. Being deceived by one is not evidence of declining judgement, and treating it as a private shame is exactly what the criminals rely on to prevent reporting. Talk to someone. If it is weighing heavily, Lifeline is available on 13 11 14.
Where Professional Advice Adds Value
The most effective protection against this is structural rather than educational. Someone who has an adviser, an accountant and a family member who talks with them about money has three separate points at which an offer gets described out loud to a person who was not part of the sales process. Almost no scam survives that.
At Money Path, clients regularly forward things to us and ask whether they are real. That takes a few minutes and we are always glad to do it, including for the offers that turn out to be genuine but unsuitable, which is a larger category than people expect. We also spend time on the underlying vulnerability, which is usually a portfolio not producing enough income to feel comfortable. An investor who is satisfied with their income is far less receptive to a fixed 7 per cent, and building that properly is the real defence.
If you are choosing an adviser, our guides on what to ask a financial adviser and the difference between general and personal advice are the right starting points. Understanding what advice costs is also part of the picture, since the fee is small against a single successful fraud.
Frequently asked questions
How can I tell if a bond offer is genuine?
Contact the institution directly, using details you find yourself rather than anything in the offer, and ask whether the offer exists. Check that the payment account is in the name of the issuing institution. Verify the licence and entity details on ASIC’s registers and check the Moneysmart Investor Alert List. A fixed return well above term deposit rates described as low risk is the clearest warning sign.
The AFSL number checked out. Doesn’t that mean it is legitimate?
Not necessarily. Criminals commonly use the genuine licence details of a real firm they are impersonating, so the number verifies correctly while the people contacting you have no connection to it. ASIC has warned that a cursory licence check is not enough. Confirm by contacting the licensee independently.
Why are retirees targeted more than other groups?
Because retirement produces accessible lump sums from superannuation, property sales and inheritances, and because low cash returns make a modestly higher fixed rate look reasonable. Australians aged 65 and over are around 17.1 per cent of the population but accounted for 26.5 per cent of reported scam losses in 2025.
Can I get my money back?
Sometimes, and speed is the deciding factor. Contact your bank immediately to try to stop or recall the payment. Report to Scamwatch, ReportCyber and ASIC. If a bank or licensed firm was involved, a complaint to AFCA may be available. Never pay a fee to anyone offering to recover funds for you.
Someone has offered to recover my lost money for a fee. Is that legitimate?
No. Recovery scams specifically target people who have already been defrauded, and victim details are traded between criminal groups. No legitimate agency charges an upfront fee to recover scam losses. Report the approach rather than responding to it.
What should I do if I am not sure about an offer?
Nothing, for a week. No legitimate investment is lost by waiting, and urgency is a sales technique. In the meantime, describe the offer out loud to someone who was not involved in presenting it to you. That single step exposes most of these.
Where do I report an investment scam in Australia?
Report to your bank first if money has moved, then to Scamwatch, to ReportCyber at cyber.gov.au, and to ASIC. If identity documents were shared, contact IDCARE. Reporting supports the work that removes scam websites, thousands of which have been taken down through this process.
Taking the next step
If something has landed in your inbox or your voicemail and you are not sure, the useful response is not to research it harder. It is to stop, find the company’s real contact details yourself, and ask them. And if you would rather have someone look at it, forward it to your adviser or your accountant. Nobody has ever regretted asking.
General advice warning: This article contains general information only. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Scam methods change constantly and the examples described here are illustrative of common structures rather than an exhaustive list. Statistics are drawn from publicly reported National Anti-Scam Centre and ASIC data and were current at the time of writing. If you believe you have been targeted, contact your bank immediately and report to Scamwatch and ReportCyber. You should consider whether the information is appropriate for you and seek personal advice from a licensed financial adviser before making any investment decision.
