Email scam
Cold caller scam
We have recently been advised of a possible unclaimed money scam whereby a member of the public is contacted by a caller advising that they are employed by the NSW Treasury. The caller states that the Treasury is holding a sum of money eg $4500 from an uncashed bank cheque which will be paid once the person has paid a fee at their local post office. Please do not respond to cold caller contacts especially where there are requests for personal details and/or payment of fees or charges.
There are no charges or fees when applying directly to OSR for claiming unclaimed money listed on our website.
Danish/European unclaimed money scam
The Office of State Revenue has recently been advised of an email scam whereby people are sent a notification supposedly from the NSW Government under an agency called New South Wales Trustee and Guardian. The document is signed under the Attorney General John Hatzistergos. This is not an authentic notification but is an attempt to fraudulently obtain personal details from recipients of the email.
If you become aware of this type of scam or if you have any information on the person or persons responsible, contact us.
What is an email scam?
We recently became aware of an email scam where the sender implies they represent the Office of State Revenue (OSR).
The email indicates that the recipient may be entitled to unclaimed monies. To obtain these funds the sender of the email requires certain personal information from the recipient such as full name, address, phone and fax number. We never request these details via email.
Be aware of emails asking for your personal details. They are an attempt to obtain your personal details for the purpose of undertaking fraudulent activity. This is commonly known as Identity Theft. If you respond in any way to the email, the scammer may send further messages or even contact you by phone in an attempt to find out additional personal information.
The email scam was sent indiscriminately to people around the country. If anyone has any information to help identify the person or persons involved or information on any other scams, please contact us.
An example of a scam email
Good day to you.
With due respect, trust and humility, I write to you this proposal. I know my request might come as a baffling and shocking embarrassment to you being that I am complete stranger to you but I have the best of intentions.
My name is Ann Elizabeth Pederson.I am with the office of the state Revenue NSW Treasury,Australia.I need you to go through the website in order the grasp what i mean:
go to www.osr.nsw.gov.au click unclaimed money on the right hand side on the webpage.Then click on the page that allows you to do a search.Click lastly on the alphabetical list of unclaimed money
My purpose of contacting you is that there has been a huge amount of money that has remained unclaimed in the treasury .Most of the beneficiaries are either missing or declared dead. What I need from you is your full details i.e. full names,address, phone and fax number.
We will discuss much in details when I do receive your response. Its of utmost importance for you to know that i'm doing this for humanitarian reasons and not for selfish and personal aggrandizement. If you decline my proposal, i'll understand but most importantly, i will appreciate if this will be kept with utmost secrecy.
What is your best defence against this type of scam?
We suggest you:
don't open the email if you do not recognise the sender
don’t respond to the email!
don't select any links to the website contained in the email as the site may be one specifically set up by the fraudster
don’t provide any personal or financial details.
Emails with website links can contain code that could attempt to gain access to your computer by loading a trojan-infected program or perhaps a keylogger program onto your computer. This program can be used to gather your personal information such as a user id and password.
The fraudster can then use your personal details to create fake accounts in your name, ruin your credit rating, or even prevent you from accessing your own accounts.
Note: We do not request this type of information from our clients via email.
For more information on scams and other fraudulent activity contact:
