05/04/2019
SCAM ALERT
This is the official site for TeleBiz Telco Pty Ltd, trading as TeleBiz (a registered trademark).
We are aware of a two consectutive scam Facebook Marketplace Pages, that commenced 12th February 2019 named "Telebiz Mobiles". Both of the scam pages impersonated our business by using our Trademarked name, our ABN, our street address, and our business logos. The two scam FB pages were taking payments for mobile phone orders and not delivering! The scammers communicated with customers via "messenger" only, and only accepted EFT payments into ANZ, CBA, NAB, and Westpac bank accounts. After victims paid for their orders they were then blocked access to the scam pages which meant they couldn't complain about not receiving their orders and were seemingly blocked from reporting the scam pages to Facebook!
We were constantly reporting the issue to Facebook and relevant Australian Cyber Crime authorities, e.g. ACSC, Police, ACCC, Scamwatch, ASBFEO, ASIC etc, and all were remarkably unhelpful! All up, we lodged over 100 reports and not once did Facebook acknowledge our scam reports. The first scam page disappeared on the 10th June 2019, two days short of four months since we started reporting the Scam FB page. Two later, the same scammers uploaded another impersonating TeleBiz FB page (appeared 16th June 2019).
Shame upon Facebook, for ignoring their own community standards and reporting mechanisms! Ultimately, the 2nd scam page was removed after I bluffed my way past security guards in FB HQ in Sydney in Sept 2019 and hand delivered a report to FB Reception. I also gave FB a list of all the other Australian businesses that the scam ring was impersonating and extensive details of who the scammers were, and their locations (Mauritius, with links to Nigeria). Whilst FB then acted within days to delete the scam pages, we note the same scammers at it again a mere two weeks later; impersonating other Aussie businesses, and recruiting Aussies to unwittingly manage the pages. As at today, we are not aware of any other scams impersonating our company, but we would never trust FB to stop them!
We encourage victims to report FB scam pages via their own FB accounts, and dont accept job offers advertised on Facebook unless the employers provide a legitimate phone number you can contact to confirm legitimacy, e.g. scam employers usually only offer "messenger" or an email address as the only methods of contact!
TeleBiz HQ in Cairns is also keen to collect information from scam victims and to assist them pursue reimbursement on their behalf from the irresponsible banks who readily provide bank accounts for the scammers!
You can contact us by phoning 0740402000 during business hours Mon-Fri. The type of information we seek is the Bank BSB and account number provided by the scammers and ideally screen shots of your messenger comms withe scammers.
Also, if you have a business that sells tangible products (via any medium, not just FB marketplace), and/or you are someone who purchases products via Facebook market place, then you are a sitting duck for these scammers!
Rod Harris, TeleBiz Managing Director.