WHEN Moree district contractor Angus Maunder saw a post from a local business warning of a scam machinery website claiming to be based locally, calling itself ABM Farming he got a fair surprise.
Create a free account to read this article
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The name, and the ABN, of the shady business was the same as his own contracting spraying and harvesting operation.
Mr Maunder said he was then contacted by his accountant and by Northern Territory consumer affairs about the scam, and has since spoke to the cybercrime division of the NSW government.
"They are working to have the site shut down."
Luckily, he said the misappropriation would have no consequences for him.
"We're a bit lucky that most of our work comes about as a result of word of mouth, if you were a business that relied on advertising it would be a different story.
"Certainly, it hasn't been great to read the stories with the headlines of ABM Farming being a scam, it probably won't hurt us too much but for other businesses it could have a bit of an impact."
Mr Maunder said he has no idea how his business was chosen, but said it could have been as simple as the scammers looking at an alphabetical list of ABNs registered in Moree and picking the first one with a farming reference.
He said the ABM Farming site was just one of many dodgy sites offering cut-price farm machinery.
"There's been other very similar sites popping up everywhere of late, it's a bit of a surprise that they catch anyone given it doesn't take too long to figure out it is a bit too good to be true, but I suppose having things like that ABN mentioned adds a bit of legitimacy to it all."
He said the cybercrime squad had strong leads regarding the internationally-based scammers and were trying to shut them down although he added it was difficult given when one was shut down, another was set up.