A Sunshine Coast woman has warned others of a scam after she received an email, claiming to be from Australian Federal Police, for a bogus traffic infringement.
Gaye McGrath posted a copy of the fake AFP traffic infringement notice to a Sunny Coast Community Board on Facebook and told anyone who'd received the email to delete it immediately.
"Be careful... I got one this morning. I also had one a few months ago that was a virus," one Facebook commenter wrote.
"The trouble is that it really frightens people. I got one and dismissed it. A friend got one and was distraught. Hated seeing her in this state," wrote another.
AFP manager cyber crime operations commander David McLean said the scam email asks recipients to pay an AFP fine of about $150 dollars for negligent driving.
"If links within the message are clicked, the computer is infected with malware which renders them inoperable. Then recipients are asked to pay large sums of money to reactivate their emails."
Cyber crime operations commander McLean said many people "had been compromised" and asked anyone who received the email to "delete it immediately".
"To protect yourself from all scams, check that your antivirus software is current and consider running a virus scan on your computer."
Australian Federal Police said they had received numerous reports about the scam email which had "done the rounds" last year and had "reared its ugly head again".
If you have clicked on the link in the scam email, please report the incident to the ACORN at http://report.acorn.gov.au/
Learn more about scams online.
