Since late March 2020 there has been a notable spike in scams targeting the Chinese-Australian community. On most occasions the recipient receives a pre-recorded message in Mandarin asking the recipient to either press a number to be connected or call back on the number provided in order to resolve some urgent business.
When recipients respond they are connected with someone claiming to be from one of the following: Beijing or Shanghai police, or DHL (delivery service), Chinese Embassy or Consulate. Multiple variations of the scam have emerged since it was first reported in 2018, however scare tactics have been utilised in all calls in an attempt to convince the recipients their identity has somehow become involved with criminal activity. Individuals have lost large sums of money to this scam and the scammers are also targeting Mandarin speakers in Canada, Singapore and the United Sates. In addition to the scamming payments, some members of the Chinese- Australian community have participated in elaborate acts as part of the deception, including image- based abuse, plea-bargaining with fake judiciary and extortion.
Please see our Fact sheets for more information.
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IDCARE has access to the Department of Home Affairs Free Interpreting Service, delivered by the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS National). Access to the Free Interpreting Service is provided to assist you to communicate with non-English speaking people who hold a Medicare card. Please note that the service does not extend to New Zealand citizens or residents who do not hold an Australian Medicare card, or to tourists, overseas students or people on temporary work visas.
New Zealand Relay provides services to help Deaf, hearing impaired, speech impaired, Deafblind and standard phone users communicate with their peers.
A TTY user connects to New Zealand Relay via a toll-free number and types their conversation to a Relay Assistant (RA) who then reads out the typed message to a standard phone user (hearing person).
The RA relays the hearing person's spoken words by typing them back to the Textphone (TTY) User.
The National Relay Service (NRS) is an Australian government initiative that allows people who are deaf, hard of hearing and/or have a speech impairment to make and receive phone calls.
The NRS is available 24 hours a day, every day and relays more than a million calls each year throughout Australia.