The Australian Securities and Investments Commission warned on Thursday that scammers are cloning its Moneysmart consumer education site—including “how to invest” style pages—to harvest names and email addresses before telephone pitch teams promote bogus government-backed schemes.
How the impersonation works
Fraudsters register look-alike domains and copy CSS layouts from the real Commonwealth site, sometimes embedding authentic links to genuine Moneysmart articles to appear credible. Victims who submit contact forms receive calls claiming ASIC has approved a crypto or foreign-exchange product. Initial deposits are small, but follow-up demands escalate quickly.
ASIC’s Moneysmart team said the legitimate service does not cold-call with investment offers and does not charge fees to access educational content. Anyone pressured to move money urgently should hang up, report the contact to Scamwatch, and block subsequent messages.
Scale of takedown work
The regulator’s earlier 2025 enforcement update described more than 14,000 investment scam and phishing sites removed since a dedicated takedown program launched, averaging about 130 malicious domains each week. Fake celebrity endorsements rose 25 per cent year on year, aided by generative AI that clones voices and news article layouts.
ASIC has extended takedowns to social media advertisements that funnel users to cloned pages, arguing that stopping scams at the ad layer prevents harm earlier than waiting for a victim’s bank transfer.
Who is being targeted
Financial counsellors report older Australians searching “how to invest” after term-deposit rates plateau, clicking sponsored results that lead off-domain. Younger victims arrive via TikTok and Instagram reels promising ASIC-linked “trading bots.” Both cohorts lose median four-figure sums before realising the .gov.au address bar never appeared.
Banks have tightened outbound fraud alerts, but recovery rates remain low once funds move to crypto exchanges. The National Anti-Scam Centre coordinates intelligence, yet domain registrars outside Australia can slow removal timelines.
Practical steps regulators urge
ASIC’s stop-check-protect advice: pause before clicking search ads, confirm the URL ends with .gov.au, never share driver licence images with unsolicited chat agents, and verify licensed financial providers on ASIC’s professional registers rather than trusting a webpage footer.
For advisers and accountants, the alert is a reminder to warn clients during tax-time appointments—exactly when scam ads spike. ASIC said it will keep publishing domain lists where possible, but the faster fix is teaching households that government investment schemes do not arrive via a Gmail follow-up five minutes after a web form.