The Great Covid-19 Lockdown

When you're self-isolating or under health department orders to isolate, it's important to retain your sense of humour and perhaps catch up on some of the things you've been putting off.

Someone spent a bit of time producing this valuable sign to remind us to social distance.

At this end, I've advertised on Gumtree a couple of items I no longer want. One attracted an attempt at fraud, which is reasonably common on Gumtree and elsewhere.

This scammer wanted me to send money to a transport company (via wire to the Philippines no less) that she would include in the price she was going to pay for the goods. The idea being that she works on a vessel off the coast of New Zealand and didn't have access to her credit cards etc.

After 12 years of police service, I'm not naturally a trusting person. I decided to go along with the charade long enough to get all her emails which I have used in an article about scammers with actual examples. Obviously I never sent any money anywhere.

One fellow who lives nearby lost $4,000 in the same type of scam when buying a motorcycle apparently stored in another state. How one could be so gullible is anyone's guess.

While researching for the article I'm writing, I found from Scamwatch Australia that Australians were screwed out of $28.6 million on relationship scams alone. People under 25 years lost a staggering $5 mllion.

The message for all of us is to use due diligence when someone asks for money.