190 Disposal Sale Fax
190 Fax-back and telephone numbers
Businesses are being targeted in a new bout of faxes under the heading “Government & Police Disposal Sales”.
Almost the mirror image of the fax circulated in 2005, it promises to provide a “fully up to date list of places the Government and Police use to sell off recovered and seized goods”.
Items promoted include:
- Recovered mobile phones, lap tops and mountain bikes
- Recovered Government vehicles
- Seized and recovered jewellery Hi-Fi equipment, digital cameras
- Wide screen TV’s, home theatre systems and video camcorders
- Power tools
- Office equipment.
The fax says: “Find out how to take part in these highly profitable, little publicised sales. Goods are sold to the highest bidder on the day. Serious bargains for resale or personal use can be obtained for literally cents on the dollar! We’ve done the research for you in this immediately available guide.”
Call costs are $5.50 per minute and it can take 6 to 9 minutes to receive the 14-page guide. That can be close to $50 for information you could find for free!
Similar offers in the past have been found to be of little value and can land those who call the premium fax numbers with huge telephone bills. It is especially important to tell employees not to respond to this type of fax back scheme, as the costs are paid by the business not the person responding to the fax.
We suggest you save your money and keep an eye out for newspaper advertisements from auction houses that regularly dispose of goods on behalf of police and government departments. A simple Internet search of Police Auctions will result in over a million sites found worldwide…hardly any need to pay $50 to get the same information. Or you can contact local auction houses direct and ask to be put on their mailing list.
In this recent fax, it advises that consumers can have their name removed from the list by calling a 1300 local call cost number.
WA ScamNet encourages anyone receiving these faxes to fight back by calling Consumer First Pty Ltd on 1300 555 249 and selecting the option to remove their details from Consumer First’s data base. If after this, people continue to receive unsolicited faxes, they should lodge a complaint with Consumer Protection.
Click here to fight back
Scams of a similar type include:
For more scams of this type and others, visit the full list of scams by type page.
