Scammers are taking advantage of supply shortages within the agriculture industry, leading to a loss of more than $1.2 million for farmers, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
Almost 300 reports of fraudulent sales of tractors and other farm machinery have been made to the ACCC's Scamwatch between January and August this year, a 21 per cent increase in reports made for the same period in 2021.
Now, the ACCC is warning farmers to be extra cautious when purchasing farm machinery online, saying scammers are being "ruthless" in their targeted behaviour.
The ACCC said scammers were either selling fake machinery for a discounted price and requesting a 10 to 20 per cent deposit, or sending fake invoices to businesses.
ACCC deputy chair Mick Keogh said the average individual loss was about $16,000 for machinery, but some businesses had lost up to $300,000 through fake invoice scams.
"The fake invoicing has been around for a while now and is more rife throughout the community, although the tractor and machinery scams make up about two-thirds or more of the reported losses," he said.
"The chances of getting it back are very slim. I don't think anyone has had much success getting money in these instances.
"Whenever an issue emerges in the community, scammers move in very quickly to take advantage of it."
Increase in reporting
While the ACCC said it was hard to know what had led to the increase this year, the Tractor and Machinery Association of Australia attributed the rise to more victims reporting scams.
"We suspect part of it's due to the fact that reporting has increased," the group's executive director Gary Northover said.
"It's been a widespread problem for years now."
The organisation said it was typically farmers who had not bought large machinery before that were falling victim to the scams, and Mr Northover said it was often difficult to identify a fake website or listing.
"With the ease of doing business over the internet now, scammers are having their day so we just need to be careful," he said.
"Clearly the people that are doing it are very professional ... and they produce websites and pictures of machines that look real.
"And I'm not so sure it's just confined to the agricultural industry."
Mr Northover also said he believed the amount of money lost was much larger than the ACCC has reported.
"If you think about the average tractor, that might be $50,000 or $60,000," he said.
"That's about 20 tractors in a year ... so I think that $1.2 million could be on the low side."
'Too good to be true'
Mr Keogh said scammers were using typically reliable methods of selling machinery to dupe unsuspecting farmers.
"They're using quite legitimate advertising platforms such as rural newspapers or websites and advertising themselves as machinery dealers," he said.
"The pricing of those models is quite cheap compared to other sites."
Scammers will tell potential buyer availability is low and if they want to guarantee the cheaper price, they need to pay a 10 to 20 per cent deposit, to secure it.
In order to reassure buyers, scammers tell them the money is going into an escrow account and is refundable.
Mr Keogh said while the machinery scams made up a lot of the reported scams, fake invoicing was also a huge issue.
He said one fertiliser business lost between $200,00 and $300,000 when they paid an invoice to a scammer, believing it to be their regular supplier.
"They will look fairly convincing," he said.
"They'll have photos and an address and in some cases they will even have an ABN quoted ... unfortunately, they often turn out to not be legitimate.
"If the deal looks too good to be true, it probably is ... that's the golden rule."
